New legs, new feet, new
everything, in a moment! fresh as though just out of bed; here we
go tearing through the jungle like a buffalo, and as happy as
though we had just come in for a fortune - happier, a great
deal.
Nevertheless, elk-hunting is not a general taste, as people have
not opportunities of enjoying it constantly. Accordingly, they
are out of condition, and soon be, come distressed and of
necessity "shut up" (a vulgar but expressive term). This must be
fine fun for a total stranger rather inclined to corpulency, who
has dauntlessly persevered in keeping up with the huntsman,
although at some personal inconvenience. There is a limit to all
endurance, and he is obliged to stop, quite blown, completely
done. He loses all sounds of hounds and huntsman, and everything
connected with the hunt. Where is he? How horrible the idea that
flashes across his mind! he has no idea where he is, except that
he is quite certain that he is in some jungle in Ceylon.
Distraction! Ceylon is nearly all jungle, two hundred and eighty
miles long and he is in this - somewhere He tries to recollect by
what route he has come; impossible! He has been up one mountain,
and then he turned to the right, and got into a ravine; he
recollects the ravine, for he fell on his head with the end of a
dead stick in his stomach just as he got to the bottom; he
forgets every other part of his route, simply having an idea that
he went down a great many ravines and up a number of hills, and
turned to the right and left several times.
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