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On ahead, nearly a quarter of a mile away, we could see a huge tiger making off for the distant morung, at a rapid sling trot. His lithe body shone before us, and urged us to the most desperate efforts. It was almost a bare plateau. There was scarcely any cover, only here and there a few stunted acacia bushes.
You are oppressed by the solemn stillness, and feel almost nervous as you push warily along, for at any moment a leopard, wolf, or hyena may get up before you, or you may disturb the siesta of a sounder of pig, or a herd of deer. Up in those forests on the borders of Nepaul, which are called the morung, there are a great many varieties of parrot, all of them very beautiful.
Enormous numbers had been swept off by disease, and in many villages bordering on the morung the herds had been well-nigh exterminated. Little attention is paid to breeding. In some districts, such as the Mooteeharree and Mudhobunnee division, fine cart-bullocks are bred, carefully handled and tended, and fetch high prices.
The wind had now subsided, there was a red angry glare, as the level rays of the setting sun shimmered through the dense clouds of dust that loaded the atmosphere. It was like the dull, red, coppery hue which presages a storm. The vast morung jungle lay behind us, and beyond that the swelling wooded hills, beginning to show dark and indistinct against the gathering gloom.
Fancy an elephant steeple-chase. Reader, it was sublime; but we ached for it next day. The old Major and his fleet racing elephants now left us, and our jaded beasts took us slowly back in the direction of our camp. It was a fine wild view on which we were now gazing. Behind us the dark gloomy impenetrable morung, the home of ever-abiding fever and ague.
Far in front lay the gloomy belt of Terai, or border forest, here called the morung, where the British territories had their extreme limit in that direction. Behind this belt, tier on tier, rose the mighty ranges of the majestic Himalayas, towering up in solemn grandeur from the bushy masses of forest-clad hills till their snow-capped summits seemed to pierce the sky.
On inspection we found they were rhinoceros tracks, evidently of old date. These animals are often seen in this part of the country, but are more numerous farther north, in the great morung forest jungle. A very noticeable feature in these jungles was the immense quantity of bleached ghastly skeletons of cattle. This year had been a most disastrous one for cattle.
Tiffin in the village. The Patair jungle. Search for tiger. Gone away! An elephant steeplechase in pursuit. Exciting chase. The Morung jungle. Magnificent scenery. Skinning the tiger. Incidents of tiger hunting.
Botanically it is readily defined as the region of forest-trees; amongst which the Sal, the most valuable of Indian timber, is conspicuous in most parts, though not now in Sikkim, where it has been destroyed. In the latter country it is called the Morung, and supplies Sal and Sissoo timber for the Calcutta market, the logs being floated down the Konki and Cosi rivers to the Ganges.
The patch of forest was separated from the unbroken line of morung jungle by a beautifully sheltered glade of several hundred acres, and further broken in three places by avenue-looking openings, disclosing peeps of the black and gloomy-looking mass of impenetrable forest beyond.
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