The tiger in India—His reputation—Wounded tigers—Man-eaters—Game killers and cattle thieves—A tiger's residence—Chance meetings—Methods of tiger hunting—Beating with elephants—Sitting up—A sportsman's patience—The charm of a night watch—A cautious beast—A night over a kill—An unexpected visitor—A tantalising tiger—A tiger at Asirgarh—A chance shot—Buffaloes as trackers—Panthers—The wrong prey—A beat for tiger—The Colonel wounds a tiger—A night march—An elusive quarry—A successful beat—A watery grave—Skinning a tiger.

Would any book on India be complete without a tiger in it? Although he is found in many other Asiatic countries—in China they shoot him in caves, in Corea there is a whole militia raised to deal with him—yet in the popular mind the tiger is particularly associated with Hindustan. No distinguished visitor would consider himself properly entertained if one were not provided for him to shoot. The young subaltern in England pines for the day to come when he will be ordered to India and have his chance to face the striped beast in his native jungle.

The usual conception of the tiger is an animal of infinite cunning, cruelty and ferocity. Cunning he certainly is; but his reputation for ferocity and courage is hardly deserved. He is really rather a harmless and timid creature, of a decidedly shy and retiring disposition, avoiding, rather than courting, notoriety. Sanderson, one of the greatest authorities on sport in India, argues that the tiger is actually a public benefactor, inasmuch as he kills off old and sick cattle which, since the pious Hindu would not put them to death, would otherwise linger on spreading disease among the herds. Natives, near whose village a tiger takes up his residence, betray no fear of him and go about their daily avocations in his vicinity as indifferently as if he did not exist. I have seen women drawing water from a stream not a hundred yards from the spot where half an hour later I drove a tiger from his lair. For, except in rare cases, these animals prefer to give man a wide berth, and, when stumbled upon accidentally, will usually effect a rapid retreat if they can. Of course a wounded tiger followed up is an exceedingly dangerous foe. Furious with pain, exhausted and in agony, he will turn savagely on his pursuers; and then a quick eye and steady rifle are needed to check him in his fierce charge. Even shot through the heart he may retain sufficient vitality to reach and maul his aggressor, then perhaps fall dead on his mangled victim without killing him outright. But few men wounded by a tiger ever recover; for the shock and the blood-poisoning set up by the unclean claws of the carrion feeder are almost invariably fatal.

The man-eater is, fortunately, rare; for, having once learned how easy a prey human beings prove, he is apt to devote himself too exclusively to them; and the total of his victims soon mounts up into the hundreds. The man-eater is made, not born. Sometimes it is an old beast no longer agile enough to surprise the animals of the forest or even bring down a stray cow, but still supple enough to spring upon some unwary wood-cutter or villager. Natives believe that human flesh disagrees with a tiger's digestion, and point in proof to the mangy state of most man-eaters' hides. But the reason of this is that the animal is generally old or sick. Sometimes, however, the tiger who takes to the slaughter of human beings is a young and vigorous beast. He has probably some time or other been disturbed over a kill or foiled in an attempt to carry off cattle by some rashly courageous individual, and in anger or the desperation of hunger has slain the intruder. Finding that after all man is not a formidable enemy and quite palatable, he continues to prey on him and in time almost devastates a whole district. He becomes a public character and attracts more attention than he likes. Government gazettes honour him with a notice proclaiming him. A price is set on his head. White men come from all sides to hunt him down; and the unfortunate animal knows no peace until a lucky bullet lays him low. Scared natives regard him as an evil spirit and set up altars to him. And yet it is extraordinary how indifferent the inhabitants of a district ravaged by a man-eater become to his presence. I have seen a postman jog-trotting along night after night on a road on which two men had been killed and eaten by a tiger the week before. The man's ridiculous little spear and bells would have been no protection against the Striped Death springing on him out of the darkness; but he had his living to make. His orders were to carry the mail-bag along that stretch of road every night; so with true Oriental fatalism he jogged on, seemingly indifferent to the chances of an unlucky meeting.

The man-eater being an exception, tigers may be classified as game slayers and cattle killers. Those haunting a jungle where sambhur, cheetul, pig and small antelopes abound take their toll of them. A monkey is quite a delicate morsel, if they can catch an unwary bunder on the ground or fetch him from a low bough by an unexpected spring. Those that take up their residence in cultivated country usually prey on the cattle grazing in the scrub jungle near the villages. A tiger generally rules over a stretch of ground about five miles square and keeps strictly within his own domain. Any intruder of his own sex is speedily ejected. But it is a curious fact that when a tiger is shot, another quickly appears and takes up his abode in the defunct animal's dominions. A certain patch of jungle, a particular nullah, may be the residence of a tiger which is known to be the only one for miles round. But if he is killed his habitat is almost certain of another striped tenant very soon.

The game slayer is not often seen, living as he does in the heart of the jungle and prowling mostly by night. The cattle lifter levies contributions from the villages in his district in turn, usually killing a cow every two or three days. He takes up his residence for the time being near the carcass in some shady spot close to water. He eats about sixty or eighty pounds of beef at his first meal, goes to drink and lies up during the day to digest his heavy meal, returning at night to feed again. If any villager happens to blunder in on his privacy during his siesta, he gives a low, warning growl which usually suffices to scare the intruder off. The natives pay little heed to him and go about their usual pursuits without heeding his proximity.

On my first introduction to the jungle—it was in the Central Provinces years ago—I had a wholesome respect for tigers. When I learned that one lived in the particular part of the forest where I went shooting, I used to feel anything but comfortable as I wandered about in search of sambhur. I marvelled at the unconcerned way in which even women and children traversed this jungle from village to village. One day I climbed down into a deep, narrow ravine in the hope of finding a stag sheltering in it from the unpleasantly hot sun. Suddenly from a clump of bushes above my head came a deep "Wough! wough!" like the bark of a great dog; and a tiger crashed out of it and bounded up and over the edge of the nullah. I swung my rifle round; but he was out of sight before the butt touched my shoulder. My shikaree (native hunter) cried "Bagh! Bagh! (A tiger! a tiger!)" and rushed up past me after the vanished animal. Rather unwillingly I clambered up too; and I was decidedly relieved when, on emerging from the ravine, I found that the ground was covered with grass six feet high, so that pursuit of the tiger was hopeless. However, on calmly considering the matter afterwards, I came to the conclusion that the beast was even more afraid of me than I of him. So I devoted much time and attention to trying to meet him again. Many a night did I sit up for him over a cow tied up as a bait. Time after time I followed his footprints by day and tried to walk him up near the carcass of some deer he had killed and half-eaten. But never again did I see him.

A few months ago in the Kanera Forests I was wandering about one afternoon, shot-gun in hand, in search of jungle fowl for the pot, about half a mile from the Government dÂk bungalow—or rest-house—in which I was staying. I was making my way along a narrow path. Just as I reached a spot where it came out on a small clearing in the forest, I heard some heavy animal forcing its way through the undergrowth about forty yards to my left. I stepped out into the open and looked in the direction from whence came the sound, which stopped as soon as I appeared. I stood still for a couple of minutes. Suddenly a tiger, which had evidently been watching me, gave a deep roar and crashed off through the thick jungle. It was useless to try to follow him up even if I had had a rifle instead of a shot-gun. The setting sun warned me that I must hurry home; so I continued on my way. Two hundred yards further on the path led down into a narrow nullah with steep banks. Here I found the fresh prints of the tiger's paws in the mud, the water just oozing into them. Had I come along a few minutes earlier we would have met face to face in the narrow way; and the chances were that, in his hurry to escape, he would have charged me and knocked me down. And a blow from a tiger's paw is not a caress to be courted. But the two incidents will show that these animals are generally anxious to avoid men.

Native shikarees frequently sit up over water for tigers; but European sportsmen usually adopt one of the three following methods. The first and most effective is to shoot them from elephants; but this does not often fall to the lot of the average man. I was fortunate in having the opportunity in Buxa. The second method is to mark down where the animal is lying up after a kill and have him driven by a line of beaters to the spot where the sportsman is concealed.

In the Central Provinces I went out one day with a friend who had arranged such a beat for a tiger which had killed a cow tied up as a bait for him near a village. After a ten miles' drive we reached this village; and, having had an early start, we breakfasted under a tree on a hillock just above a long nullah which seamed the bare, brown fields with a winding line of green. Below us the hundred and sixty coolies collected as beaters squatted and smoked until the Sahibs were ready. Just as we had finished our meal, a cow burst out of the jungle in the nullah and dashed in among the groups of men. They caught her and became very excited over her. We could see them crowding round her, talking volubly. Then the cow was led up to us; and we found that she was bleeding from a wound in the throat. All down her flanks and rump ran long scratches as if from the claws of a monster cat. This told us plainly that the tiger we were in quest of was still in the nullah and that the cow had stumbled on him unawares. The tiger had evidently tried to seize it but, gorged with his night's meal, missed the fatal neck-breaking spring and, as the cow fled, struck out and clawed it behind.

The coolies cried "Wah! wah! the shaitan's (devil's) last day has dawned. See how the cow has come straight to the Sahib's feet to show her wounds and claim justice!" I am afraid the animal's bovine intelligence was not equal to this, but, in terror, she was only making for her village and safety.

We waited under our tree until the day was at its hottest, so that the tiger, when driven, would be all the more reluctant to face the burning sun in the open and would retreat along the nullah in the shade; for where the ravine forked off in two branches machÂns, strong wooden platforms, had been built for us up in the trees, one commanding each branch. We took a short cut across the open in the terrific heat. The pitiless sun beat down on us as we walked over the shadeless fields, and seemed to boil the brains in our skulls. It was a relief to reach the nullah and the cool shelter of the trees in it. We climbed up into our respective machÂns, which were about a mile away from where the beaters were to begin the drive. I could see my friend perched up in his tree across the bank dividing his branch of the nullah from mine. This bank was covered with undergrowth from which sprang a line of trees. In these a number of langurs—the big grey apes with black faces surrounded by a fringe of white whisker, which gives them a comic resemblance to aged negroes, a resemblance increased by their white eyebrows—were playing. They came to look at us, leaping from bough to bough, stooping and craning their necks to see us as we sat hidden by the leafy screens around our machns. Then, their curiosity satisfied, they continued their play and swung through the branches away in the direction of the beaters. For a couple of hours I sat drowsing in the intense heat. The silence was profound. Suddenly loud cries, the drumming of tom-toms, and the tapping of sticks against tree-trunks, told me that the drive had begun. I looked to my rifle and sat ready. The noise drew nearer; every nerve in my body was aquiver. Then in the tree-tops pandemonium broke loose. The langurs were coming back towards us, leaping from branch to branch, shrieking, chattering with rage at something moving along beneath them. It was evidently the tiger, their foe as well as ours, which was trying to steal away silently before the beaters. The apes seemed to know his design and to be endeavouring to foil him. I really believe that they realised that our presence boded no good to him; for several looked at me as much as to say:

"Here he is. He is trying to escape. We won't let him creep off unnoticed."

I had read of this extraordinary behaviour on the part of monkeys during a beat in Captain Forsyth's interesting book, "The Highlands of Central India"; but I could scarcely credit it. But now I saw these langurs following the tiger's progress and shrieking abuse down at him. He seemed to be coming straight for me; and my heart rejoiced. But suddenly from the change of direction of the apes I saw that he had turned, crossed the dividing bank, and was going down the other nullah. Then I heard a deep short growl; and at the same moment my friend's rifle went up to his shoulder and he fired. Mad with excitement and furious at being unable to see what was happening, I did a very foolish thing. I slipped down from my tree and dashed through the undergrowth to the brink of the nullah. I saw the tiger rush across the narrow ravine and spring up the opposite bank, which was higher than the one on which I stood. Near the top his strength seemed to fail him. He clung on desperately, unable to pull himself up. My friend fired again; and the brute, struck in the foreleg, dropped back into the nullah. He rolled over and over in agony, biting at his paws and tearing them with his teeth. I fired at his shoulder. Even then he rolled about for a few minutes; and then his head fell back, his frame stiffened and he lay still.

The shot drew my friend's attention to me; for he had not noticed me on the ground. He shouted angrily:

"Go back, you fool. Get up your tree. There is a second tiger in the beat."

I well deserved his uncomplimentary epithet; for, had the first animal sprung up the low bank on which I stood we would have met face to face. I hurriedly scrambled up again and sat with my rifle ready, until I saw first one man, then another and another, appear in the nullah; and finally the whole line of beaters reached us. There had been a tigress in the drive as well; but she had broken out to one side. She passed a tree in which a man had been placed as a "stop"; but, although he flung his puggri in her face, she was not to be turned, and escaped out over the fields. I climbed down again and cautiously approached the tiger, keeping my rifle ready lest there might be some life in him still. I have known a sportsman to walk up to an apparently dead tiger and pull its tail, to be laid low the next moment by a blow from the animal's paw. Some of our coolies threw stones at the body; and as these elicited no response I walked up to the beast and found it dead. As the natives try to steal the whiskers, which they believe to have a certain magical power, I mounted guard until a litter had been made from cut branches to convey the tiger to the village for skinning. Arrived there the local flayers were set to work. The dead brute looked the embodiment of strength; and I marvelled at the masses of muscle the knives disclosed in the thick limbs. The first bullet had struck behind the shoulder; and when the carcass was cut open we found a hole the size of a florin right through the heart. Yet even with this wound the animal had been able to dash across the nullah and spring up the bank. It showed that a tiger shot through the heart could reach and kill a man before falling dead itself. The other wounds were in the foreleg and ribs. The natives did not leave a scrap of flesh on the bones. For it and certain parts of the tiger are supposed to endow anyone who eats them with courage and vigour; and crowds of women came to carry off their husbands' share of the meat. The fat—such layers of it, white and firm, on the well-fed cattle thief—is boiled down for oil, which is considered a sovereign remedy for rheumatism. The skin was pegged out, hair downwards, on the ground and scraped clean, then covered with wood ashes. And the last stage of the proceedings consisted in the beaters being assembled and paid their wages—fourpence a man. Had the drive been unsuccessful, they would have only received twopence each. It seems little reward for disturbing a sleeping tiger; but the coolies were quite satisfied.

The cause of the langurs rage was evident when a beater brought us the half-eaten body of one of their number which he had found near the spot where the tiger had been sleeping. My friend told me that he was able to mark the brute's progress through the undergrowth by the movements of the apes above him. The tiger had come out from the cover into the clear bed of the nullah with his head turned over his shoulder glaring up at them in anger. And the deep growl I had heard was uttered against these betrayers of his flight.

This is a fair example of the second method of tiger shooting. But neither it nor the first are possible in very dense forest; and then "sitting up" must be tried. This consists of tying up a cow near a nullah or patch of jungle in which the tiger is suspected or known to be. If he kills and eats part of it, a machÂn is built in a tree close to the carcass and concealed by a tree of leafy branches. On this the sportsman takes up his position in the afternoon and tries to shoot the tiger when he returns to feed on the kill at dusk or later on moonlight nights. Sometimes he is obliged to wait till dawn. This is the method which least often proves effective. It is particularly tantalising and demands the patience of a Job. From about 4 p.m. to 6 a.m. the hunter must sit still in a cramped position. He scarcely dares to move his limbs, must make no noise, cannot smoke; if he has brought food with him he must consume it quietly. The dead cow, specially in the hot weather, offends his nostrils with a terrible stench. And thus, sickened by the awful odour, tormented by mosquitoes, he must sit through the night, every sense on the alert. He dare not drowse, for he cannot tell at what moment the quarry may appear. And the tiger is a cautious beast. If he does return to the kill, he will generally prowl around for some time before approaching it; and if he scents the waiting man in the tree above or anything arouses his suspicions, he will melt away without a sound into the darkness, leaving the hunter's vigil unrewarded.

Yet sitting up is not without its charm. While daylight lasts it is interesting to watch the carrion feeders hastening to snatch a mouthful of the feast Chance has provided for them, always on the alert lest the rightful owner of the banquet should suddenly appear. High overhead a dim speck is seen against the sky. It grows larger and clearer, sinks down and, wheeling in great circles, reveals itself as a vulture. Another and another follow and, gradually descending, perch on the trees around. An impudent grey-headed crow pushes in before them and alights close to the dead cow. Then hopping on to the carcass it cocks its head impertinently at the less courageous vultures and begins to dig its beak into the putrid flesh. The big birds flop heavily to the ground and with much rustling of wings, shoving, hustling, angry squawks and vicious pecks at each other, begin their meal. But up fly the birds as a couple of jackals make their appearance and slink furtively to the kill. While they feed they look around apprehensively and start at every sound. The vultures flap over towards the dead cow again and demand their share of the good things that Chance has provided. The jackals snarl and snap at them, driving them off with short rushes. But suddenly they bolt themselves, as a dozen fox-like little beasts with reddish skins, sharp ears and handsome brushes trot up to the kill. These are the dreaded wild dogs which decimate the game in the jungle. They hungrily tear at the flesh, quarrelling and snapping at each other, ready to fly if the tiger appears. If the carcass is near water a white-and-black, long-legged bird is certain to be hovering about, crying plaintively and incessantly: "Did he do it? Did he—did he—did he do it?" until the exasperated watcher in the tree longs to shoot him. Then the sun sets, the noises of the day sink into silence; but the jungle wakes.

In the forest below Buxa lived a very large tiger which vexed my soul exceedingly. Generations of commanding officers had pursued him in vain; and the task was handed down as a legacy from each to his successor for years. Fired at once, and possibly wounded, over a live cow tied up as bait, he was never to be tempted to approach another. Inspired to compass his death by the impressions of his huge paws, which I often found in the sand of river-beds, I had three cows tied up for weeks in different nullahs. In the daytime a man whom I employed for the purpose took them to graze and water and fastened them up again before dark. At first I used to sit up in a tree over one or other of them night after night without result. Then I resolved to wait until he had killed one. It was equally fruitless. For, although his "pugs" or footprints, were often to be traced coming up the nullah and diverging towards the cow tied up in it, they always showed that he had turned abruptly and made off as soon as he discovered the nature of the bait.

At last one day news was brought to me that he had killed a sambhur hind in the forest. As it was just at full moon, I gave orders that a machÂn should be built in a tree near the carcass. Leaving the fort early in the afternoon I descended into the jungle and reached the spot about 6 p.m. when there was still some daylight. I found that the sambhur had been killed in a nullah a hundred yards off while drinking, and had been dragged by the tiger over the top of an almost perpendicular bank, up which I found it necessary to pull myself by my hands, and then over a small and steep hill. As a full-grown hind stands thirteen hands high and weighs five hundred pounds or more, this gives one some idea of a tiger's strength. The jungle here consisted of high trees with little undergrowth. As it was now the hot season when most of the leaves are shed, I noticed with satisfaction that the ground around below my machÂn would be well lighted when the moon rose. My orderly and two sturdy-limbed Bhuttia coolies were up in a tree over the kill, tying an inverted charpoy, or native bed (which makes the best and most comfortable machÂn) in a fork, and hanging leafy branches around it to screen it from sight. I climbed up and tried to enter it. It was awkwardly placed and overhung me. I succeeded in getting my chest on the edge, when the rotten framework broke and nearly precipitated me to the earth, thirty feet below. I managed to save myself and sat astride a branch while one of the coolies cut a few bamboos from a clump close by and repaired the damage. Then I got into the machÂn, laid a packet of sandwiches and my Thermos flask beside me, loaded my rifle and, sending my orderly and the Bhuttias away, settled myself for my lonely vigil. I amused myself at first by watching the birds preparing for the night. A troop of monkeys came to drink in the neighbouring nullah and passed overhead, leaping through the branches, hurling themselves from tree to tree, chasing each other in play or pausing now and then for a comfortable scratch. Mothers with tiny babies clinging closely to them sprang across the voids and swung themselves by hand or foot. A peacock sailed down majestically from the tree-tops to the water and gave its weird cat-like cry. The heavy flapping of wings and an eerie wail told of a big owl bestirring itself early. The harsh "honk" of a sambhur stag rang out; and the sharp bark of a khakur sounded at regular intervals. The sun sank lower and the twittering of the birds faded into silence. The drone of the multitudinous insect-life, unceasing in the day, yet only heard plainly at the hour when the louder sounds of larger life are hushed, seemed to rise now with startling distinctness. But even it died; and only the irritating hum of the mosquitoes around my head was left to break the complete silence. The air was still; and the sudden fall of a withered leaf seemed to echo clearly through the hushed forest. There was yet daylight in the sky; but a dusky gloom deepened under the trees. I lay down on the charpoy, peering through my leafy screen at the dead hind. My rifle was uncocked beside me, for I judged the hour too early for the tiger's visit; and I stretched myself at full length to rest before it would be necessary to sit upright with every sense alert for my long watch. Suddenly I was roused by the sound of loud footfalls to my rear passing over the dry leaves which crackled like tin to the tread. They came without hesitation towards my tree; and I thought angrily that it could only be one of my coolies returning to me contrary to orders. Without moving my body I turned my head around at the risk of dislocating my neck, intending to bid him in a loud whisper to go away. To my astonishment, instead of a man, I made out in the gloom of the underwood a huge bulk that I first took to be a baby elephant. Thirty yards away from my tree it stopped; and I saw that it was a large Himalayan bear, which looked immense to me after the smaller species of the Central Provinces. Fearful of scaring it I lay still in my constrained position. It stood motionless and seemed to be staring up at my machÂn. I hurriedly debated the question whether I ought to take a shot at it and give up all hope of the tiger, whom the sound would alarm, or let it go and wait for the greater prize. I decided on the latter course and simply watched it. Suddenly it turned and walked away as noisily as it had come. This surprised me; for I had imagined that wild animals tried to move silently through the forest. But the bear is indifferent to the other jungle dwellers; he does not fear the ferocious beasts nor attack the harmless ones.

As soon as it had gone I glanced at my watch which showed 6-40 p.m. I sat up, cocked my rifle, and held it across my knees. The daylight died away in the swift oncoming of the tropic night; but the full moon shone overhead and cast the tangled pattern of leaves and branches on the ground. For hours I sat, scarcely daring to change my position or move my cramped limbs. Suddenly from the direction of the nullah where the deer had been killed came the tramping of some heavy animal over the dry leaves towards me. The tiger at last! One touch of the hand to assure myself that my rifle was cocked and I sat motionless, though the beating of my heart sounded loud in my ears. Few sportsmen, after long hours of waiting, can hear the approach of their quarry without a quickened pulse. The brute walked straight towards the kill. In another second it must emerge into the full glare of the moonlight. Stealthily I raised my rifle to my shoulder. Alas! just as one step more would have brought it out from under the black shadows of the trees, the tiger stopped. For minutes that seemed hours it remained motionless. Then it moved back so silently that only the sharp crackle of a dry twig farther away told me that the animal had gone. What had aroused its suspicions I cannot tell. Perhaps it had scented me up in the tree or detected the recent presence of humans around its kill. Cursing its cunning, I uncocked my rifle and stretched my cramped limbs. It was then half-past eleven. I was strongly tempted to lie down and sleep; but I knew that the tiger might return. So I continued my watch. It is in the small hours that the vigil becomes hardest. About half-past three in the morning I was nodding drowsily, when again from the nullah I heard the sound of the animal approaching. His tread seemed even more assured than before; and I made certain of getting him. But once more, just within the shadow, he paused. I strained my ears but could detect no sound. Another few minutes of anxious waiting; and then gradually, almost imperceptibly, he withdrew. This was the climax. I showered maledictions on his head. I had to wait until after six o'clock before one of my elephants came to take me on a long day's shoot in the jungle. Before quitting the spot I searched the ground and found the tiger's two trails leading up from the nullah.

The sportsman who tries his luck in "sitting up" must be prepared for many disappointments. He may watch night after night and never once see his quarry. He may select an evening when the moon is full, only to find clouds come up and obscure its light; and then, in the unforeseen darkness, he may be tantalised by hearing the tiger come to feed on the kill, may listen for an hour to the tearing of flesh and the crunching of bones and be utterly unable to get a shot. The adjutant of my regiment, Captain Hore, once paid us a visit at Buxa and went shooting in our jungles. On his first day he came across the carcass of a sambhur killed the previous day by a tiger. So he had a canvas chair tied up in a tree over it and climbed up to wait in it for the slayer to return. Before daylight faded he saw some wild pigs come and feed on the kill. But just as the moon rose they fled hurriedly; and he heard some large animal moving in the jungle close by. It prowled cautiously around in cover near the carcass for over two hours, but would not show itself. Meantime heavy clouds drew across the sky, blotting out the moon and shrouding the forest in impenetrable darkness. Suddenly Hore heard the prowling tiger leave the cover at last. It sprang out on the carcass as though the sambhur were alive and tore and rent it furiously. The sound of bones cracked to an accompaniment of snarls and growls came clearly to the watcher above; but the darkness was opaque. At last, in desperation, he fired in the direction of the noise but missed; and the tiger bolted. And the next moment, as though the shot had been the signal for the storm, a vivid flash of lightning rent the clouds, a terrific peal of thunder sounded overhead, the sky seemed to open and pour down sheets of rain. Hore's position was unenviable. The so-called waterproof he had with him was wet through in a few minutes. He could not put his rifle away from him, yet feared lest it should attract the lightning. It was hopeless to descend and try to find his way through the forest in the darkness. And so through the weary night, exposed to all the fury of a tropical storm, he was obliged to sit shivering in his chair, forty feet above the ground. And to add to his annoyance the tiger, evidently confusing the flash and report of the shot with the lightning and thunder, returned and fed on the kill again, while Hore on his uncomfortable perch listened, powerless. And when at six o'clock in the morning one of my elephants came to fetch him, it was a very sodden, chilled, and miserable individual that climbed from the tree on to its pad. But not disheartened he ordered the mahout, instead of returning to Buxa, to take him for a wide sweep through the jungle in the hope of shooting something to console him for the night's disappointment. The storm had ceased. Within a mile he came upon a herd of six bison with a splendid old bull among them. But the rules of the forest department prohibit their being shot in Government jungle; and so the again baffled sportsman was forced to let them go unscathed, while they stared at him and his elephant for several minutes before they moved away.

Once during the rainy season at Asirgarh I was sitting up over the carcass of a white cow in what should have been brilliant moonlight. But heavy clouds gathered; and soon all I could see of the kill was a faint whitish glimmer. Suddenly this was blotted out, and I heard a crunching of bones and tearing of flesh. I could not see my sights, but I fired in the direction of the sounds. A terrific howl followed by fiendish shrieks and groans told me that I had hit a tiger. I heard him rush off thirty or forty yards and throw himself on the ground, where he rolled in agony, tearing up the earth and sending the stones rattling down into a small nullah beside which he lay. I hoped that I was listening to his dying moans; but he got up again and the groaning and snarling died away in the distance. There was a village a mile off; so, giving the tiger time to get well away, I climbed down and made for it. It was a nerve-trying walk in the darkness; for I feared every moment to stumble on the wounded beast. However I reached shelter without encountering him. I gave my shikaree instructions to bid the cowherds of the village be ready with their buffaloes at daybreak to track the tiger. For these great black beasts are frequently used in this work. Their instinct tells them that the tiger is the enemy of their race; and they regard him with savage hatred. In a herd they do not fear him; for the hungriest cattle thief will not dare to attack a number of them which form round the calves and present to him an impenetrable front of lowered heads and sharp horns. On their backs the small children of the village who drive them to and from the grazing ground are safe. When a sportsman employs them to track a wounded tiger, the herds take them to a point where they can scent his trail. As soon as they have smelt it, they paw up the earth and bellow with rage, then dash off in pursuit. If they come on him lying up wounded and sore under a tree, they will charge him if allowed to. And no tiger would dare to face their savage onslaught; for little avails his strength and cunning against the fierce rush of the infuriated beasts. If he is not too badly hurt, he will invariably fly before their attack. If not, then must the sportsman shoot quick and the herds exert all their authority to keep the buffaloes back; for, if left to themselves, they will rush in on the tiger, gore him and stamp him to death under their hoofs. And the skin will be of little use as a trophy when they are allowed to work their will on the battered carcass.

Having given my orders, I slept in the local police station on a charpoy lent me by the havildar, or sergeant, in charge. At daylight my shikaree woke me and I went out to find about twenty buffaloes collected. They were driven out to the kill. The sight of the dead cow enraged them. They bellowed and stamped, then snuffing up the trail set off at a run across the fields like a pack of hounds. They soon tracked the tiger into the jungle. They crashed through the undergrowth, now and then at fault, but questing round until they picked up the trail again. They followed it up for two or three miles and finally lost it in broken and precipitous ground among the low hills. My shikaree assured me that it was useless to search further, as the tiger could not have been badly wounded and was certain to have retreated to a great distance. To my regret I let myself be persuaded; for, a few days after, the sight of vultures gathering from all quarters led to the discovery of the tiger's body not half a mile from where we had left off. But the carcass was putrid and half-eaten, so the skin was useless.

But shooting on chance in the dark is not always productive of the desired result. Once when sitting up on a cloudy night for a panther, I discharged my rifle at some animal which I could hear, but could not see, at the kill. A pandemonium of shrieks and yells told me that by good luck my bullet had gone home. I waited for silence, and then, having reloaded, climbed down and cautiously approached. But to my disappointment, instead of the dead panther which I had hoped to find, there lay the corpse of a loathsome hyena. On another occasion when sitting up in the middle of a village for a daring leopard which used to enter it at night and kill the cattle in their pens, I shot a mangy pariah dog in the dark.

A panther is a much bolder animal than a tiger. He generally returns to his kill earlier, often in broad daylight. I have seen one come out, five minutes after my coolies had left, from some bushes in which he had evidently been watching them. Even when shot at and missed or slightly wounded they will return the same night to a kill. And sometimes one has been known to discover the waiting sportsman in the machÂn first and spring up the tree to attack him unprovoked. So that sitting up for these animals is not without its risks.

The method of shooting tiger from elephants undoubtedly gives the best sport. Seventeen miles from Buxa Fort the great forest ends abruptly. From its ragged edge, five miles above the town of Alipur Duar, the cultivated plains stretch away to the south, seamed with nullahs which run from inside the jungle through the open fields. They are generally deep and filled with low trees and scrub, and as they contain water form ideal bases of operation for a tiger issuing from the forest to carry on war against herds of cattle in the villages. The striped thief can lie up within a few hundred yards of a farm and kill the cows when they come to drink. If disturbed, he can retreat up the nullah to the shelter of the forest. Consequently the stretch of ground just outside the south border of the Terai Jungle is full of tigers.

During a visit from our Colonel to Buxa for his annual inspection I received an invitation from Mr Ainslie, the Subdivisional Officer of Alipur Duar, to bring my elephants and join him in a beat for a cattle thief which was lying up in a nullah three or four miles from the town. At that time I had only Khartoum and Dundora; as Jhansi had run away to the forest after being attacked by a wild elephant and had been missing for months. However, on our arrival, we found Ainslie had collected seven; so that we had nine altogether. This number was not a great one; but we hoped that it would suffice. Mrs Ainslie was to accompany us; for she was a great sportswoman and had shot five tigers herself, as well as various panthers, bears and bison. We started out in the early morning, crossed the railway line, forded a river—which each elephant carefully sounded with its trunk—and reached the nullah in which the tiger was reported to be lurking. It was broad and dry, filled with scrub and low trees. Ainslie took the Colonel in his howdah; and Mrs Ainslie shared mine. Taking up our positions on the bank we sent the beater elephants half a mile further on to drive towards us. At a signal from Ainslie the beat began. The elephants formed line across the nullah and advanced, forcing their way through the jungle. An occasional squeal from one of them when the mahout struck it on the head for shirking a particularly thorny bit of scrub, the cries of the men and the crashing of the huge beasts through the jungle as they trampled down the undergrowth and broke off branches from the trees, made din enough to scare anything. It soon proved too much for the tiger's nerves. My mahout had carelessly allowed his elephant to draw back from the edge of the steep bank. I saw a sudden flash of yellow as the tiger darted through the scrub along under the overhanging brink in such a way that he was sheltered from my rifle. But I shouted a warning to the others, who were posted farther down where the bank sloped less steeply. The Colonel fired and wounded the beast, which dashed up the bank and received a bullet from Ainslie before it was lost to sight in the high grass on the level. The beater elephants emerged from the nullah, surrounded it, and drove it in again. They endeavoured to send it to us; but the tiger refused to face the guns a second time and broke through their line, my orderly, Draj Khan, hurling a heavy stick at it and hitting it as it flashed past his elephant. We tried for it again lower down, several times, but without success.

While we were thus engaged it seemed strange to see the mail train pass on the railway line not half a mile from us, driver, guard, and passengers leaning out to look at us. Leaving the nullah we ranged through the long grass on the level and put up a number of wild pigs, the Colonel shooting a fine old boar with long tusks as sharp as knives.

Having heard that a panther was supposed to be lying up in another nullah a couple of miles away, we took our elephants there and tried a beat for it. This time the howdah bearers advanced along the bank in line with the beaters, spaced across the nullah, which was fairly open, with patches of scrub here and there in it. We were unsuccessful in finding the panther but were afforded an excellent example of the terror with which elephants regard tiny, harmless animals. Over some bushes in front of me I caught a glimpse of a hare running through them down into the nullah. Its course brought it right across the line of beaters. Then these huge beasts, which had just faced a wounded tiger unmoved, went mad at the sight of it. All trumpeted shrilly, some planted their forefeet firmly and refused to advance, others turned and stampeded, despite the heavy blows showered on them with the iron ankus by the enraged mahouts. I saw Ainslie and the Colonel, unable to discover the cause of the disturbance, stand up in their howdah, clutching their rifles and looking everywhere for the charging panther, which they imagined must have scared the elephants.

One afternoon in Buxa I received a telegram from Ainslie telling me to be with him early next morning as a tiger had killed in his neighbourhood that day. As Alipur Duar was twenty-two miles away it behoved me to start at once and march through the night. So, filling my Thermos flask and putting a loaf of bread and a tin of preserved meat into my haversack, I shouldered my rifle and walked down the three miles of steep road to Santrabari. Here I found the mahouts and ordered them to get the two elephants ready, Jhansi still being a deserter. I bade them put the howdah on Dundora's back, as she was the steadier with a charging tiger. We started off at once; but before we reached the railway station at Buxa Road, darkness had fallen. My elephant stepped out briskly with the swaying stride that is particularly trying in a howdah, the occupant of which is shaken about like a pea on a drum. I kept slipping off the hard wooden seat; so I tried standing up, holding on to the front rail. This was almost worse; for if I forgot for a moment to brace myself up with stiffened arms I was thrown against the side. So for twenty-two miles I had to keep changing my position continually and found it tiring work. Through the forest we lumbered on without stopping. The night was dark. Fortunately, the road ran along beside the railway line clear of the trees, which would otherwise have swept the howdah off Dundora's back. Once or twice a wild elephant trumpeted in the jungle, much to the alarm of our tame ones; so I kept my rifle loaded, ready to drive off any we might meet. When I felt hungry I opened the tin of meat and, as we went along, made a frugal dinner, having to use my fingers as knife and fork, washing the food down with water from my flask. The long march was extremely fatiguing; but by daylight we were clear of the forest. Arrived at the dÂk bungalow at Alipur Duar I found one of the officers of my regiment, Major Burrard, who had come there on leave from headquarters at Dibrugarh in Assam for a shoot. The Ainslies could not accompany us that day, but had kindly lent us their four elephants. The kill was reported to be in a nullah about four miles away, close to the edge of the forest. Burrard and I started for it at once. Our way lay over open bare fields. Our elephants, as is their habit, persisted in tailing off in single file, though a hundred could have marched abreast. Each kept exactly in the footprints of the one in front of it. As we went along, I noticed half a mile to our left a nullah fringed with trees. In these, or circling overhead, were a number of vultures. I remarked that every now and then one would swoop down to the ground, only to rise again into the air like a rocketting pheasant without alighting. They indicated the presence of a dead animal; and I asked the mahouts if our kill was there. They answered that it was about a mile further on. I judged that another cow must have been killed in this nullah; and from the fact that the vultures did not dare to settle on it, I concluded that a tiger must be in the immediate vicinity. So I directed my elephant towards the spot. As we drew near I looked at the rows of bald-headed vultures, those repulsive-looking scavengers of India, sitting on the branches. Every few minutes one would fly down towards the ground and, without settling, hurriedly shoot up again into the air. Cautiously approaching the edge of the bank we found, as I expected, the carcass of a cow. We skirted the bank but could not see the tiger, which was probably asleep somewhere in the tangled scrub in the bottom of the nullah. So, marking the spot for a visit next day, we went on our way. Arrived at the place where the beat was to begin, we found another nullah filled with jungle, with bare, open ground stretching away on either side of it. We took up our positions in it on our two howdah elephants and put the beaters in farther down.

They came on the tiger lying asleep under a tree. He sprang up in alarm and, instead of retreating along the nullah towards us, rushed up the bank and broke away over the open past a group of natives who had come out from a farm close by to watch the hunt. As he was not fifty yards from them, they were very scared. It must have been a fine sight to see the big cat bounding across the bare plain until he reached and plunged into a parallel nullah a few hundred yards away. But we in the bottom of our ravine saw or heard nothing of him until our beaters came up. We searched the other nullah for him in vain. He probably had not stopped until he had reached the shelter of the forest.

That night, when dining with the Ainslies, our host told us of some curious happenings in tiger hunts around Alipur Duar. A former commandant was shooting one day on Dundora. Mrs Ainslie was in the howdah with him. A tiger burst out of the jungle before the beat. The officer fired and wounded it; but, hardly checking in its rush, it dashed forward, being missed by another bullet, and sprang on to the elephant's head. For a second it stood with its hind feet on Dundora's skull, its forepaws on the front rail of the howdah. The officer dropped his empty rifle and, seizing a second gun, shoved the muzzle against the tiger's chest and fired. The brute fell back off the elephant, dead. The whole incident had passed like a flash. The tiger had actually stood right over the mahout crouching on the neck; but the man, although he found afterwards a long tear in the shoulder of his coat from the animal's claw, was not touched. On another occasion a tiger was shot in mid air as it sprang clean across a nullah, crumpled up and fell into the stream at the bottom. When the sportsmen on their elephants reached the edge of the bank, it was nowhere to be seen; and they concluded that it must have escaped down the nullah. But a month afterwards a second tiger was similarly shot in the middle of a spring and was seen from a distance to fall into a stream in the nullah, try to struggle out of the water and collapse beneath the surface. So the mystery of the first one's disappearance was solved. It must have been lying under water at the bottom of the nullah; but no one thought of looking for it there.

Next morning I came out on to the veranda of the dÂk bungalow and surveyed with pride the six elephants drawn up in line before me. On the neck of each sat the mahout, who raised his hand to his forehead in a salaam. Then at the word of command the six trunks were lifted into the air and the elephants trumpeted in salute. As I looked at them I murmured inwardly: "This day a tiger must die!"

We were to look for the animal that had killed the cow I had found the previous morning. So Burrard and I made an early start and proceeded to the spot I had marked. The nullah was narrow, S-shaped, with almost perpendicular banks fifteen feet high. A stream of water filled it from bank to bank. On either side of it was thick scrub jungle and elephant grass eight feet high. I stationed Burrard at one end of the S and took up my position at the other about a hundred yards from him. My elephant was back a little from the nullah, along the far bank of which the tall, stiff grass stood like a wall. The beaters started a quarter of a mile from us and drove through the scrub on the other side of the nullah. A tiger, as a rule, begins to move at the first sound of the beat; so I stood up in my howdah with my rifle cocked. I may mention that shooting from an elephant, even when it is standing, is not easy, for the animal is never still. It continually shifts its weight from foot to foot, flaps its ears, moves its head and beats its sides or chest with its trunk to drive off the flies.

The line of beaters advanced through the scrub with their usual din. Now and then, under the tangled undergrowth, I caught a glimpse of my orderly or a mahout. They drew nearer and nothing broke out of the jungle in front of them. My heart sank when I saw them not a hundred yards from me. But at that moment a number of small birds flew up from the tall grass and I heard the sound of some heavy animal forcing its way through the tough stems. I held my rifle ready to cover the spot. The next instant I saw the head and shoulders of a large tiger push out through the grass on the very brink of the nullah. Though the tall stalks on my side almost concealed my elephant, the tiger saw me at once and crouched for a spring. Its savage face was plainly visible, the fierce eyes fastened on me, the snarling lips drawn back over the white fangs, the bristling whiskers, all forming a fiendish mask appalling in its cruel expression. I threw up the rifle to my shoulder, took a quick aim and fired. The tiger started convulsively, sprang erect for an instant, then plunged head foremost into the nullah with stiffened forelegs close to the body, as a man diving holds his arms straight by his sides and hurls himself into the water. I was too far back from the bank to see down to the bottom of the nullah; but suddenly the tiger sprang convulsively straight into my view and then fell back again. The mahout, shrouded by the high grass, had seen nothing of all this. I shouted at him to urge Dundora forward to the edge of the nullah. From the brink I peered down into it; but, to my intense disappointment, no prostrate body of a tiger met my eyes. The banks were sheer; and I could look up and down the nullah for a hundred yards. I could not believe that the brute had escaped. I was convinced that I had not missed him, that my bullet had struck where I aimed, right between the shoulders, as he crouched for the spring. It should have been a fatal shot; but the tiger had vanished.

Suddenly Ainslie's stories of the previous night recurred to me. I glanced down the stream and saw, twenty yards from where we stood, a discoloured patch in the dark water. I had the elephant brought opposite it. I stared hard until I believed that I could make out the outlines of a tiger below the surface and see the stripes on the body. I pointed it out to the mahout. He gazed unbelievingly for a moment, then gave vent to an excited shout. The beaters had meantime reached the opposite bank and were calling across to ask if I had hit the tiger. When we told them where it was they laughed incredulously. I ordered Bechan to dismount from Khartoum's neck and enter the stream. With the air of one who does a ridiculous thing to please a fretful child, he slid down the bank and walked into the water. Suddenly he yelled in terror and sprang for the dry land. He had put his bare foot on the tiger's body. The animal was lying dead in three feet of water. The others urged Bechan to go in again; and with some trepidation he did so. Reaching down he lifted up the tail and held the tip up above the surface. The other mahouts and my orderly shouted with joy, for it meant largesse to them, and jumped in after Bechan. They moved the body easily to the edge of the water but could not lift it up the bank. We called some coolies from huts close by; and it took twenty men to raise the carcass up to the level.

The tiger was a fine young male in splendid condition, and measured nine and a half feet from nose to tip of tail. After photographing it, we brought the elephants in turn up to it as it lay on the ground and encouraged them to smell and strike it. This is done to show them that the animal is not a foe to be dreaded. We all had to help in lifting the limp body on to Khartoum's back; for a well-grown tiger weighs nearly three hundred and fifty pounds. It was fastened on to the pad with ropes; and we started back in triumphal procession to Alipur Duar, where the beast was flayed and the flesh scrambled for by the women of the neighbourhood, who gathered like vultures. The skin was pegged out on the grass to dry, before being sent to a taxidermist to be dressed and mounted to adorn my bungalow.