or get a leopard. Unlike tigers, leopards (usually known as panthers) are increasing all over the country. They can conceal themselves in any patch of grass, whereas the tiger cannot, and seems to resent the gradual cutting down of forests that made his once impenetrable home. Where he still survives up-country is in some stretch of tree- jungle that can scarcely be beaten with fewer than twenty thirty elephants. Unluckily no more of these were to be obtained by us than the two that happened to be yet with us, after having brought on some of our camp outfit. Two, however, were better than none, and a third was eventually added to added to us by the good offices of the sub-inspector. Having vouched for the presence of a tiger, he seemed determined that at least all due preparations should be made for its extinction. He had sent out three watchmen to ascertain if any more cows had been killed; and himself turned up at our tents later that same evening to say that, if his Honour was willing, two Babus the schoolmaster of the village and the nephew of a Zemindar would be gratified if they were allowed to join the expedition, bringing their own elephant. "They are here outside, waiting to hear if your Honour permits," said the subinspector, waving into the darkness, where we could dimly see two bowing figures in the indecent draperies that Babus affect. "Are they in the habit of hunting?" asked the Collector, who desired their elephant more than their company. The two figures moved up to the flap door-way of the tent. "We shoot the panther," said two voices in unison. "We do not of ourselves shoot the tiger." "Why not?" asked the Collector. "Why not?" repeated the sub-inspector, and there were some murmured explanations between the three of them. Then the sub - inspector announced "Your Honour, they do not shoot the tiger because they are cordy men. "Cordy?" Cordy, your Honour." The Collector did not understand, and looked towards me. I shook my head. The word, apparently an English one, was new to me. "All right," said the Collector. "Only mind you don't hold your guns in my direction." It seemed rather a blunt way of forewarning members of one's shooting - party, but, as the Collector explained to me after the Babus had departed, it is necessary. For choice they will always hold their guns at a fellow-creature. This makes hunting on a pad elephant nervous work. A lurch or a jib on the part of the elephant faced suddenly by a wounded tiger, and a wild clutch at the pad-rope on the part of the Babu, will sometimes cause his gun to go off in any direction rather than the tiger's, especially if the Babu happens to be holding it by the trigger. In taking risks of this kind the Babu is fearless enough, but the Sahib less so. The Collector was so very much less so that, on the following morning, before we started at about nine o'clock, he disarmed the Babus of two revolvers which they had brought with them in addition to their guns (one of which was muzzle-loading), in case the tiger came to close quarters; but I do not fancy they minded the confiscation, and the subinspector, who was to come with us, very much approved of it. He rode our spare elephant together with one of the Collector's chuprassies, both armed for the nonce with shot-guns, and he kept shouting directions to the Babus how to hold their weapons until the Collector abashed him-for a moment or twoby pointing out that while he was discovering the mote in the Babus' eye-so to speakhis own gun was pointed full at the head of the unfortunate chuprassie behind him. After that the sub-inspector contented himself with instructing the mahout how to drive his elephant. It was a perfect day of North Indian winter, the sky blue and fleckless to the horizon, the sun beginning to blaze, the air still cool. From our cliff a long view of the plains extended, broken here and there by clumps of bamboo and mango groves. Through distant silvery sands rivers still more silvery meandered, and tiny cattle dotted the bare brown fields. As we started north along the edge of the cliff, a cloud of parrots burst from a tree overhead, and made the air for a moment a whorl of glittering green. There must have been several hundreds of them. Massed like that, there are only two bird-flights I know to compare with them for beauty, that of silver plovers and that of the peacockcoloured fowl misnamed the purple coote. I have seen all three in this same country, and could never decide which was the most worth seeing. Perhaps the silver plovers wheeling into the sunset. It reminded me always of a sight that may be viewed at times off our South English coasts a pilchard shoal hauled up in the nets under a moon. But this is by the way, as so many fascinating things are in Bengal. on I said that we moved north our elephants, and the an It was a jungle consisting chiefly of scrub-oaks, and to me it somehow looked uncommonly small to be the abode of a tiger. It could not have been half a mile wide, and its length was a mile at most. We had just passed through a village to enter it, and I could see thin smoke indicating another village on the opposite side. "Surely," I said to the Collector, "a tiger doesn't live as close to mankind as this?" reason for that was not so of the fact, his toes begin to much that the sub-inspector twiddle. Malaise of that sort had got tic information of a is worth watching for tiger in that direction, as that Indian judge has told me. Our on Monday-he declared-it is Babus looked very comfortable, lucky to ride north. To tell in spite of their respective the truth, which is more than guns, which they had been the sub-inspector could really ordered to hold butt downdo, no more definite news wards, being sloped in a deadabout tigers had been forth- line for one another's heads. coming over night. There were, on the other hand, rumours involving two tigers or more, of which one certainly appeared to have its beat to the south. Possibly, however, this was only a small bagh—or leopard, and the jungle in which it lived-if it did live there was & very large jungle. On the other hand, the jungle in which the subinspector felt sure that the very big bagh did live was a small one, easy to beat. It was this latter point rather than the sub-inspector's superstition about riding north on Monday that decided the Collector to try the north jungle, and we entered it in about three-quarters of an hour from the time we started, the elephants having moved well. I find it easier to praise an elephant after I have got off it than when I am on it, for the reason that when its pace is most superb and rapid then is the man mounted on it most uncomfortable. No doubt the thing is a matter of use and wont. A mahout looks fairly comfortable on his steed's neck. So does a Babu on a pad. But then a Bengali always does look comfortable. It is his nature to, except in the dock, when, if he is guilty and he thinks the judge may be aware "Oh yes," he said. "I shot my first tiger in a very similar place." "But didn't the villagers dislike having him there?" I asked. The wood was lined with paths through which it was clear the natives passed to their work on either side, and it struck me as singularly unpleasant to know that when one was coming home tired after a day's work one might find a tiger barring one's way. "They don't like him," said the Collector, "any more than your villagers like a motor going through. But they get used to him. I shouldn't wonder at all if there was one here." The elephants had separated a bit, and were beating the wood in line, swishing at the thicker cover with their trunks, and wheeling in and out. The first thing that started upwith an awful clatter-was a pig, and he bolted before us. at a great pace. Both Babus pointed their guns at the grey streak of him as he vanished, and the Collector was only just in time to prevent the subinspector from firing without taking aim-"We don't want to frighten the tiger away for the sake of a pig," he said. "No, sir," said the sub-inspector, in quick sympathy with his chief, and hastened to tell the Babus that they were not to shoot at pigs. "Shoot only at tigers," he added. "And if you shoot," said the Collector drily, "do not-as the sub-inspector does-first place the butt of your gun against the pit of your stomach and shut your eyes." "I shall keep them open next time, your Honour," said the sub-inspector, as though he had hitherto been experimenting with a view to finding out what method of discharge was most to his superior's taste; and we moved on again in silence, only the mahouts giving an occasional sharp injunction to their elephants in that mahout language which they say is the same all over India and Ceylon. Just as in otter-hunting the hound - work is to many the most interesting part, so in this jungle-beating, elephantwork is. The huge creatures go so delicately and thoroughly. Some say that for all their horny skin they can feel the scratch of a dog-rose, with which the jungle is often thick, and I can believe it, from seeing their unwillingness to enter a dense patch. Yet they are more earnest than any human beater, and a good deal more competent, too, by reason of their long strong trunks, when anything has to be had out of close - growing clumps. It is not easy, of course, to tell precisely which of the work is done by the mahout and which by the elephant; but if there is any shirking, I should be inclined to ascribe it to the mahout for choice. We put up nothing else in our first beat across the jungle except two jackals, that went off at a gentle canter, with their ears up, and a few mongooses; and coming back, higher up, we had no more success. We did indeed find the skeleton of a cow, but this was old, possibly two months or more. The sub-inspector advised that we should move on to a grass jungle hard by the river that separates Bengal from Nepal, where he now felt persuaded a bagh would be found. If it were not, he said, it would be simple to cross the river, and beat for a while on the Nepal side. As, however, the entrance of Indian officials into that territory is strictly forbidden by treaty, the Collector refused to consider it, thereby showing himself less corruptible than the sub-inspector had supposed. He confessed to me that he was sorely tempted, and it must be a considerable temptation to enter at times and commit a dacoity upon wild beasts. Indigo - planters, who used to go in pretty freely fifteen or twenty years ago, understand that he thereby before the authorities became meant the tiger. It seems too strict, have told me that the shooting was magnificent. The Nepalese villagers liked them to come and kill off a tiger free of charge, and if an official discovered them, it was sufficient to say that they had missed their way, and to move on to some other campingground equally rich in game. In all probability the game, both big and small, has increased since then. Nepal has not been civilised, and in a country where only a few years ago it was not uncommon-as again planters have told meto see 8 man smeared with honey and tied up to a pole for the ants to eat-by way of punishment for some misdemeanour, it is not likely that brutes, wild or otherwise, have been much reduced. It was decided by the Collector that, instead of defying the laws of the country, we should beat once more through the little oak-jungle, and turn south later on, if it failed to produce anything. We were encouraged as we re-entered by meeting a villager, draped in faded pink, who told us that an old man in the far village had, only the evening before, seen "the jackal" as he returned from cutting grass in the jungle. The jackal had passed the old man not ten paces off, and the latter had flung himself on his face in fear. The villager called it "the jackal" all the time he spoke, but the Collector and sub-inspector and the Babus, and in fact everyone but myself, seemed quite to the that is a custom. You do not in these sequestered places talk of a tiger at all, because if you do you may attract its attention to yourself. Woods have ears as well as walls. Any name-jackal, dog, creatureis to be preferred, and is used, as I have said, not slightingly but, on the contrary, out of respect. For the tiger is not supposed to know that the person who spoke of a jackal and desired its destruction in reality meant the royal beast. I suppose we had not left this duly cautious villager for more than five minutes, and were beating a part of the jungle which we had already passed quite close to on our first beat, when the Collector, who was looking out on the left, suddenly sat up and fired twice in a twinkling. "Tiger!" he said, and I said something very different, for I knew I had missed my first chance. I hadn't even seen the beast, and the Collector said afterwards that it had been worth seeing, as it had crossed full in sight of him slowly from one patch of cover to another. But there was no time to feel properly disgusted, and there might be another chance. Not a sound had greeted the bullets, and the mahout, who had put our elephant to a canter (if that is the word), declared the tiger had slipped off unwounded. His Honour had missed. was still saying so-to the noise of crackling twigs and plunging feet-and we were all on the stretch of excite He |