After hunting about in the wind’s eye for a short time in the jungle, with torches in our hands, we came upon a huge dead buffalo, swollen almost to double his natural size.  Upon seeing this, the bearers and servants shrugged their shoulders, as if the case had been hopeless.  Not so the gallant Admiral, who, in his usual style of prompt resource, called out, “Let us bury this monster before we go to bed.”  And, sure enough, under his directions, and by his assistance, we contrived, in a quarter of an hour, to throw sand, earth, and leaves enough over the huge carcase to cover it completely.  “There’s a cairn for you!” exclaimed the Admiral, throwing down his spade, which he had been using with his only hand; “and now let us turn in; for by the first peep of the morning we must have a touch at the wild ducks and peacocks on the sides of the lake, and perhaps we may contrive to have a shot at a buffalo or a stray elephant.”

Accordingly, next morning, actually before it was light, I felt the indefatigable Admiral tugging at my ear, and bidding me get up, to accompany him on a shooting excursion, and as he said, “Mayhap we shall get sight of some of those elephants, the existence of which you presumed to doubt last night.  Come, Mr. Officer, show a leg!  I know you are a bit of a philosopher, and curious in natural history; so rouse up and come along with me.”

Most cordially did I then anathematise all philosophy, and wish I had never expressed any curiosity on the score of wild beasts, peacocks, or ancient tanks; but as the Admiral was not a person to be trifled with, I made a most reluctant move, and exchanged the delightful dream of hot curries and cool sherbet for the raw reality of a shooting-match, up to the knees in water, at five in the morning.  At one place, such was his Excellency’s anxiety to secure a good shot at some ducks, that he literally crawled for a couple of hundred yards among the muddy shore of the lake on his knees, and at the end expressing himself fully repaid by getting a single capital shot at a wild peacock!  He was also gratified by bringing down a magnificent jungle-cock—­a bird which resembles our barn-door fowl in form, but its plumage is vastly more brilliant, and its flight more lofty and sustained, than any of which the bird can boast in its tame state.  Our scramble in the mud brought us within sight of a drove of several hundred buffaloes.  We saw also several troops of wild deer; but, to our great disappointment, not a single elephant could we catch even a glimpse of.  We counted, at one time, several dozens of peacocks—­some perched on the trees, some high in the air; we fired at them repeatedly, but I do not believe any came within shot.  Their plumage exceeded that of our tame peacocks less in the brilliancy of the colour than in the wonderful fineness of the gloss—­a characteristic of animals of all kinds in their native state.  We scarcely saw one small bird during our whole excursion, or heard a single note but the hideous screams of the peacock and parrot—­tones which dame Nature, in her even-handed style of doing things, has probably bestowed upon these dandies of the woods, to counterbalance the magnificence of their apparel.