The green growths in the sides of the ravines burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead stuff ; the hidden pools sank down and caked over , keeping the last least footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron ; the juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung to and died at their feet ; the bamboos withered , clanking when the hot winds blew , and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the Jungle , till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed of the stream . The birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year , for they knew what was coming ; and the deer and the wild pig broke far away to the perished fields of the villages , dying sometimes before the eyes of men too weak to kill them . Chil , the Kite , stayed and grew fat , for there was a great deal of carrion , and evening after evening he brought the news to the beasts , too weak to force their way to fresh hunting-grounds , that the sun was killing the Jungle for three days ' flight in every direction . Mowgli , who had never known what real hunger meant , fell back on stale honey , three years old , scraped out of deserted rock-hives -- honey black as a sloe , and dusty with dried sugar . He hunted , too , for deep-boring grubs under the bark of the trees , and robbed the wasps of their new broods . All the game in the jungle was no more than skin and bone , and Bagheera could kill thrice in a night , and hardly get a full meal . But the want of water was the worst , for though the Jungle People drink seldom they must drink deep . And the heat went on and on , and sucked up all the moisture , till at last the main channel of the Waingunga was the only stream that carried a trickle of water between its dead banks ; and when Hathi , the wild elephant , who lives for a hundred years and more , saw a long , lean blue ridge of rock show dry in the very centre of the stream , he knew that he was looking at the Peace Rock , and then and there he lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the Water Truce , as his father before him had proclaimed it fifty years ago . The deer , wild pig , and buffalo took up the cry hoarsely ; and Chil , the Kite , flew in great circles far and wide , whistling and shrieking the warning . By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places when once the Water Truce has been declared . The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating . Every one in the Jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce ; but water is water , and when there is but one source of supply , all hunting stops while the Jungle People go there for their needs . In good seasons , when water was plentiful , those who came down to drink at the Waingunga -- or anywhere else , for that matter -- did so at the risk of their lives , and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the night 's doings . To move down so cunningly that never a leaf stirred ; to wade knee-deep in the roaring shallows that drown all noise from behind ; to drink , looking backward over one shoulder , every muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen terror ; to roll on the sandy margin , and return , wet-muzzled and well plumped out , to the admiring herd , was a thing that all tall-antlered young bucks took a delight in , precisely because they knew that at any moment Bagheera or Shere Khan might leap upon them and bear them down . But now all that life-and-death fun was ended , and the Jungle People came up , starved and weary , to the shrunken river , -- tiger , bear , deer , buffalo , and pig , all together , -- drank the fouled waters , and hung above them , too exhausted to move off . The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something better than dried bark and withered leaves . The buffaloes had found no wallows to be cool in , and no green crops to steal . The snakes had left the Jungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray frog . They curled round wet stones , and never offered to strike when the nose of a rooting pig dislodged them . The river-turtles had long ago been killed by Bagheera , cleverest of hunters , and the fish had buried themselves deep in the dry mud .
Only the Peace Rock lay across the XXXXX like a long snake , and the little tired ripples hissed as they dried on its hot side .
Mowgli Rock Truce days drinking-places hunting-grounds night river-turtles rock-hives shallows