Now, the gum of the sal tree is a very strong resin, and hardens in water. It is almost impossible to get it off your skin, as the more water you use, the harder it gets.
Next day Juggroo's face presented a sorry sight. He had plentifully smeared the gum over his upper lip, so that when he washed his face, the gum set, making the lip as stiff as a board, and threatening to crack the skin every time the slightest muscle moved.
Juggroo was 'sold' and no mistake, but he bore it all in grim silence, although he never forgot the old bearer. One day, long after, he brought in some berries from the wood, and was munching them, seemingly with great relish. The bearer wanted to know what they were, Juggroo with much apparent nonchalance told him they were some very sweet, juicy, wild berries he had found in the forest. The bearer asked to try one.
Juggroo had another fruit ready, very much resembling those he was eating. It is filled with minute spikelets, or little hairy spinnacles, much resembling those found in ripe doghips at home. If these even touch the skin, they cause intense pain, stinging like nettles, and blistering every part they touch.
The unsuspicious bearer popped the treacherous berry into his mouth, gave it a crunch, and then with a howl of agony, spluttered and spat, while the tears ran down his cheeks, as he implored Juggroo by all the gods to fetch him some water.
Old Juggroo with a grim smile, walked coolly away, discharging a Parthian shaft, by telling him that these berries were very good for making the hair grow, and hoped he would soon have a good moustache.
A man from the village now came running up to tell us that there was a leopard in the jungle we were about to beat, and that it had seized, but failed to carry away, a dog from the village during the night. Natives are so apt to tell stories of this kind that at first we did not credit him, but turning into the village he showed us the poor dog, with great wounds on its neck and throat where the leopard had pounced upon it. The noise, it seems, had brought some herdsmen to the place, and their cries had frightened the leopard and saved the wretched dog. As the man said he could show us the spot where the leopard generally remained, we determined to beat him up; so sending a man off on horseback for the beaters to slightly alter their intended line of beat, we rode off, attended by the villager, to get behind the leopard's lair, and see if we could not secure him. These fierce and courageous brutes, for they are both, are very common in the sal jungles; and as I have seen several killed, both in Bhaugulpore and Oudh, I must devote a chapter to the subject.
CHAPTER XII.
The leopard.—How to shoot him.—Gallant encounter with a wounded one.—Encounter with a leopard in a dak bungalow.—Pat shoots two leopards.—Effects of the Express bullet.—The 'Sirwah Purrul,' or annual festival of huntsmen.—The Hindoo ryot.—Rice-planting and harvest.—Poverty of the ryot.—His apathy.—Village fires.—Want of sanitation.