We passed by tea gardens,
rice fields, and grass plains; we left the village behind us and went in
the direction of the river, and came into forests of strange foreign
trees, bamboo and mango, tamarind, teak and salt trees, oil--and
gum-bearing plants--Heaven knows what they all were; we had, between us,
but little knowledge of the things. But there was very little water in
the river, and so it remained until the rainy season. We shot wild
pigeons and partridges, and saw a couple of panthers one afternoon;
parrots, too, flew over our heads. Glahn was a terribly accurate shot;
he never missed. But that was merely because his gun was better than
mine; many times I too shot terribly accurately. I never boasted of it,
but Glahn would often say: "I'll get that fellow in the tail," or "that
one in the head." He would say that before he fired; and when the bird
fell, sure enough, it was hit in the tail or the head as he had said.
When we came upon the two panthers, Glahn was all for attacking them too
with his shot-gun, but I persuaded him to give it up, as it was getting
dusk, and we had no more than two or three cartridges left. He boasted
of that too--of having had the courage to attack panthers with a
shot-gun.
"I am sorry I did not fire at them after all," he said to me.
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