surprise, felt flattered to think that his
hideous, ragged, and dishevelled dress had
frightened them.

About an hour after, he fell in with a
troop of Tippoo's Polygars, returning from
hunting. They alarmed him even more
than the tigers. These troopers took him
prisoner, and, carrying him into the fort,
interrogated him. He represented himself
as a rajpoot, disabled in Tippoo's service,
and returning to his own country. The
soldiers, unluckily, seeing his skin through
a hole in his blanket, and observing it to be
lighter than his face, suspected him of being
a European deserter from a chaylah
regiment, and went to their killadar to know
what was to be done to him. Bristowe,
pretending to be half dead with fatigue and
thirst, prevailed on the one sentry left over
him, to go for water; while the man was
gone, he instantly wrapped himself in his
blanket and boldly strutted out of the fort,
passing three gates, crowded with country
people and cattle returning from the fields
for the night. Once beyond the enclosure,
Bristowe crossed a paddy-field, waded
through a tank, and struck westward:
passing three days in caves and holes, and
living all day long on the before-mentioned
berries.

On the 15th at daybreak he came, to his
great terror, on another mud fort, on a plain
near a cluster of villages. He pretended to
the Polygars who stopped him here, to be an
English deserter from the English camp in
the Carnatic, going to join some friends
in Tippoo's frontier town of Gooty. The
killadar, telling him that the Mahrattas were
plundering the country, and were encamped
only seven coss off, tried to induce him
to enter his service. Bristowe refused, but
asked to be permitted to sleep in the fort
that night. This the killadar, a good-
natured man, allowed, and next morning
sent Bristowe on a safe road with two
large cakes, some chutney, and a guide. A
few nights later, Bristowe again stumbled
on a fort, and was challenged by a sentry;
but seeing lights moving towards him, he
fled into a wood and took refuge in a
cliff cave. There he remained all day, and
at sunset, rising to start, heard a strange
noise, and beheld, to his astonishment, a
bear, busy at work scratching a den at the
foot of the very rock where he had lain
hidden.

Dejected for want of food, his feet swollen
and sore, Bristowe had the good fortune
to reach a deserted village next morning,
recently plundered by the Mahrattas; he
picked up among the ruins some rice and
raggy, a few chillies, a little tobacco, an old
earthern pot, and a most useful stout
bamboo walking stick. He ate the rice
raw, and spent the rest of the day gathering
grain in a jarra field.

The poor fellow was now so weak as to
require almost constant rest, being unable to
travel more than six miles in twenty-four
hours. His spirits had not forsaken him,
but his strength was daily going; the end
must, he felt, soon come. Still, he strained
every nerve, and tottered on till the 27th,
when he reached the banks of a small
nullah. Here his sufferings nearly ended.
The attempt to cross, so exhausted his
scanty strength, that but for some
bullrushes which grew on the opposite bank, he
would inevitably have perished. In this
struggle for life, he lost his earthern pot,
his tobacco, and all his provisions; quite
exhausted, he crawled up the bank and
threw himself on the grass to die.
Refreshed, however, by a few hours' sleep,
with new strength the poor hunted
runaway struggled on over the desolate hill-
country, hungry and tormented with pain,
yet hoping to reach at last the end of
the range of hills, at the foot of which
he had so long travelled. But now a new
and apparently insurmountable obstacle
presented itself to his dejected eyes. The
Taugbaudar river lay before him, no boats
were in sight, and he was too exhausted
to swim. In this dreadful perplexity he
looked eagerly for some floating branch
to bear him up across the stream, but all
in vain. Not allowing himself to despair,
he moved slowly along the banks, until
his heart leaped up at seeing a ferry-
boat: but the boatman would not even
suffer him to approach. Afraid to solicit
a passage too eagerly, and not strong
enough to force one, Bristowe submitted to
his destiny, and went back to seek for a
ford. Suddenly looking across, he saw two
large forts at some distance, and hearing
the cannon, concluded they were besieged
either by the English or their allies. The
next day, about three o'clock, observing
a guard of soldiers stationed as scouts
between the river and the extremity of the
hills, Bristowe ascended the hills, which
were grassy, but without covert for wild
beasts, and lay down and slept till morning.
At daybreak, still ascending, he met an old
woman watching cows, who gave him some
bread, and told him of a road by which to
avoid another guard. On reaching the plain
below, he fed on grain which he picked, and