`` We are not ALL jackals here , '' said the Adjutant . `` Was it the shoal made where the stone-boats sank in the year of the great drouth -- a long shoal that lasted three floods ? '' `` There were two , '' said the Mugger ; `` an upper and a lower shoal . '' `` Ay , I forgot . A channel divided them , and later dried up again , '' said the Adjutant , who prided himself on his memory . `` On the lower shoal my well-wisher 's craft grounded . He was sleeping in the bows , and , half awake , leaped over to his waist -- no , it was no more than to his knees -- to push off . His empty boat went on and touched again below the next reach , as the river ran then . I followed , because I knew men would come out to drag it ashore . '' `` And did they do so ? '' said the Jackal , a little awe-stricken . This was hunting on a scale that impressed him . `` There and lower down they did . I went no farther , but that gave me three in one day -- well-fed manjis -LRB- boatmen -RRB- all , and , except in the case of the last -LRB- then I was careless -RRB- , never a cry to warn those on the bank . '' `` Ah , noble sport ! But what cleverness and great judgment it requires ! '' said the Jackal . `` Not cleverness , child , but only thought . A little thought in life is like salt upon rice , as the boatmen say , and I have thought deeply always . The Gavial , my cousin , the fish-eater , has told me how hard it is for him to follow his fish , and how one fish differs from the other , and how he must know them all , both together and apart .
I say that is wisdom ; but , on the other hand , my cousin , the XXXXX , lives among his people .
Adjutant Ay Gavial Mugger day fish-eater jackals manjis shoal well-wisher