A sudden freshet in the ordinarily shallow and partially dry bed of the Donglee River tells of the heaviness of last night’s rainstorm among the hills, and compels a halt of a couple of hours until the rapidly subsiding water gets low enough to admit of fording it with a native bullock gharri.  A branch of the same stream is crossed in a similar manner, and yet a third river, a few miles farther, has to be crossed on a curious raft made of a number of buoyant earthenware jars fixed in a bamboo frame.  A splendid bridge spans the swollen torrent of the more formidable Markunda, and the well-metalled highway now cuts a wide straight swath through inundated jungle.  A big wild monkey, the first of his species thus far encountered on the road, utters a shrill squeak of apprehension at seeing the bicycle come bowling down the road, and in his fright he leaps from the branches of a road-side tree into the shallow water and escapes into the jungle with frantic leaps and bounds.

Travelling leisurely, and resting often, for thirty miles, the afternoon brings me to the small town of Peepli, where a dak bungalow provides food and shelter of a certain kind.  The sleeping-accommodation of the dak bungalow may hardly be described as luxurious; ants and other insects swarm in myriads, and lizards drag their slimy length about the timber of the walls and ceiling.  The wild jungle encroaches on the village, and the dak bungalow occupies an isolated position at one end.  The jungle resounds with the strange noises of animals and birds, and a friendly native, who speaks a little English, confides the joyful information that the deadly cobra everywhere abounds.

For the first time it is cool enough to sleep without the services of the punkah-wallah, and not a soul remains about the dak bungalow after nightfall.  The night is dark and cloudy, but not by any means silent, for the “noises of the night” are multitudinous and varied, ranging from the tuneful croaking of innumerable frogs to the yelping chorus of the jackals-the weird nocturnal concert of the Indian jungle, a musical melange far easier to imagine than describe.  About ten o’clock, out from the gloomy depths of the jungle near by is suddenly heard the unmistakable caterwauling of a panther, followed by that cunning arch-dissembler’s inimitable imitation of a child in distress.  As though awed and paralyzed by this revelation of the panther’s dread presence, the chirping and juggling and p-r-r-r-ring and yelping of inferior creatures cease as if by mutual impulse moved, and the pitter-patter of little feet are heard on the clay floor of my bungalow.  The cry of the forest prowler is repeated, nearer than before to my quarters, and presently something hops up on the foot of the charpoy on which my recumbent form is stretched; and still continues the pattering of feet on the floor.  It is pitchy dark within the bungalow, and, uncertain of the nature of my strange visitant, I kick and “qu-e-e-k” at him and scare him off; but, evidently terrorized by the appearance of the panther, the next minute he again invades my couch.