vu MY FIRST TIGER 73 



and sure enough found blood and, further on, the 

 animal itself dead. I was so delighted that I did 

 what I would hesitate to do again. I tied its legs 

 together with my handkerchief and slung it on 

 my rifle. I toiled up that hill and did not reach 

 the bungalow until long after dark. Only the 

 buoyancy of having shot one at last kept me up. 

 It weighed 60 lbs., so you can imagine how stiff I 

 felt for days afterwards. 



What I always look upon as my first real shoot 

 since landing in India took place in February, 

 when I left for the Naad on a ten days' shoot, 

 which ended in being only three and a half days, 

 as on the fourth an urgent " chit " came down to 

 say my brother was very poorly and was going to 

 Coimbatore to see a doctor. In those three and 

 a half days I shot six spotted deer stags (chital). 

 The last chital of that trip to fall to my rifle was 

 the biggest I have shot in the whole of my career 

 in India. The antlers measured 36 inches, and 

 were in prime condition, with a few shreds of velvet 

 still on so that the beading was perfect. I had 

 taken on a local shikari, by name Poota Madha, 

 a Shivasha, therefore a man of high caste, who 

 could not touch meat. He was wonderfully 

 sharp-sighted, but had two glaring faults in my 

 opinion — he was almost stone-deaf and walked 

 much too fast, long experience having taught me 

 that the man who saunters sees the most, and 

 gets the best chances. 



Now for the big stag. 



We had wandered all over the jungle without 

 getting a chance of a shot, by which time we had 

 neared a favourite haunt of the chital ; but it 



