Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/103

 I gladly quenched my thirst, having taken no breakfast, and it being now nearly eleven Mounted on my bone-breaking cart, I rejoined my friend, who had only killed five snipe and another bird. He saw but one black partridge, no deer; the game was very scarce.

Elephants here are absolutely necessary to enable a man to enjoy shooting amidst the high grass and thorny thickets. The place is so much disturbed by the people who go into the hills for wood, that the game retreat farther into the jungle. Had we had an elephant, we might have found a tiger; until I have seen one in his own domains, I shall not sleep in peace. The khidmatgarsrs?] arrived on a cart with bread, meat, tea, and wine. It being one, and the sun powerful, we seated ourselves under a tree, and made an excellent breakfast, which was most refreshing after such a ramble.

As we were tossing the bones to the little spaniels, we met with an adventure, which, bringing for the second time in my life uncivilized beings before me, quite delighted me. The foot-*path from the interior of the hills led to the place where we were seated. Down this path came a most delightful group, a family of savages, who attracted my attention by the singularity of their features, the smallness and activity of their bodies, their mode of gathering their hair in a knot on the top of their heads, and their wild-looking bows and arrows. We called these good-natured, gay-looking people around us; they appeared pleased at being noticed, and one of the women offered me some young heads of Indian corn, which she took from a basket she carried on her head containing their principal provision, this boiled and mashed Indian corn. She also carried a child seated astride upon her hip. A child is rarely seen in a woman's arms, as in Europe. The same custom appears to have existed amongst the Jews: "Ye shall be borne upon her sides, and dandled upon her knees."—Isaiah.

The party consisted of a man and three boys, apparently eight, twelve, and sixteen years of age, two women, and a little girl. The man said he had come from a place four coss within the hills, by our calculation eight miles, but hill mea