The buffaloes had wallowed in the wet season and made round well-like holes that were now hard, dry pitfalls.

Here and there a treacherous, slimy watercourse wound its slinking way along, making a bog in which a horse would sink to his shoulders; and over all these traps and pitfalls the long waving jungle-grass drew a veil.

Every now and then belts of small bamboo were crossed, into which the horses dashed blindly, forcing their way through by their weight.

When they started the buffaloes had a lead of a quarter of a mile, and judging by their slogging, laboured gallop, it looked as though the horses would run into them in half a mile; but on that ground the buffaloes could go nearly as fast as the horses, and it was only after a mile and a quarter of hard riding that they closed in on the mob, which at once split into several detachments.

A magnificent old bull, whose horns measured ten feet from tip to tip, dashed away to the right with six or seven cows lumbering after him.