Each hole on
inspection showed that it was carefully shored internally with drift-wood and
bamboos, and over the mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like the peak of a
jockey's cap, for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but
a most sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheatre--a stench fouler than
any which my wanderings in Indian villages have introduced me to.
Having remounted Pornic, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I rode
round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit would be
practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not thought fit to
put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My first attempt to
"rush" Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me that I had fallen into a trap
exactly on the same model as that which the ant-lion sets for its prey. At
each step the shifting sand poured down from above in tons, and rattled on the
drip-boards of the holes like small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent
us both rolling down to the bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand; and
I was constrained to turn my attention to the river-bank.
Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the river edge,
it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows across which I could
gallop Pornic, and find my way back to terra firma by turning sharply to the
right or left.
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