of course, that along such a boundary as ours is there should be tracts of forest and valleys in which the elephants might be noosed. But in the nature of things such places must be few and far between, and hardly capable of yielding the continually increasing number which were being led out. The time selected for hunting operations was during the height of the rains, and this was suspicious, as at this time of year the police outposts are withdrawn, and the Dooars during that time are considered most unhealthy for natives and deadly as far as Europeans are concerned. Then there had been much enquiry lately to get more passes from the Bhutan Government, and they, ignoring the fact that they had already leased the whole of their Dooar jungles to one man, accepted subsequent tenders from others and granted leases two or three times over. This awkward matter was arranged by the parties interested, which was also a most suspicious fact.
“All doubts, however, were set at rest by information we received a few days before we started for Buxa. An old Phandait (nooser), with a face like Judas Iscariot and similar motives, came in and betrayed his quondam employers and put me in possession of full information of what had been going on for two years. Fourteen elephants had already this season been taken out of British Government forests, and three parties were at that time actually at work. Mr. Dalton, Deputy Commissioner of the Division, and I decided to take up the case ourselves to prevent anything like escape by bribery, which of course in such a case would be freely resorted to, or by hard swearing and false witnesses if bribery failed.
"Accordingly, on September 14th, we started with Major Gordon, Superintendent of Gooch Behar, for the Pana nuddee about fourteen miles west of Buxa, and reached the elephant catchers’ camp at sunset. It was situated on a small spit of land between two rivers with perpen¬ dicular hills like walls at the back, on Bhutanese ground. The party had captured five elephants and taken them out to graze, and in bringing them home it was apparent that they would have to cross a point which lay on British territory; so we waited for them here and soon arrested them. There was a faint show of resistance at first, but as soon as the fact had been digested that the Sahibs were out, and there was no hope of any kind except in unconditional surrender, they gave in, and by night¬ fall we had the^ whole party, mahouts, koonkees (tame females used for catching the wild) and newly caught elephants safely in custody, and before going to sleep we recorded the full confession of the principal man. One old snarer only held out, and with that inimitable ease which in such case a Bengali only possesses, swore roundly that all the captures had been made on Bhutan territory, and actually pointed out one or two hills to mark the spots where his story might be verified. However, he gave in by two the following morning.
"On the 10th we made another excursion to a place about ten miles to the east of Buxa. The nest was empty, but we got all the local evidence we wanted, and started homewards with the knowledge that five more wild elephants were on their way to a certain place a day’s journey off, and would in a short time become Government property. This was the day
