The Tiger 247 



transforming himself into an innocent-looking woodcutter, 

 and calling or whistling through the jungle till an unsus- 

 pecting victim approached ; how the spirits of all his vic- 

 tims rode with him upon his head, warning him of every 

 danger, and guiding him to the fatal ambush where a 

 traveller would shortly pass. All the best shikaris of the 

 country-side were collected in my camp, and the land- 

 holders and many of the people besieged my tent morning 

 and evening. The infant of a woman who had been carried 

 away while drawing water at a well was brought and held 

 up before me, and every offer of assistance in destroying 

 the monster made. No useful help was, however, to be 

 expected from a terror-stricken population like this. They 

 lived in barricaded houses, and only stirred out, when 

 necessity compelled, in large bodies, covered by armed 

 men, and beating drums and shouting as they passed along 

 the roads. Many villages had been utterly deserted, and 

 the country was being slowly depopulated by a single 

 animal. So far as I could learn, he had been killing alone 

 for about a year — another tiger that had assisted him in 

 his fell occupation having been shot the previous hot 

 weather. Betul has always been unusually afflicted with 

 man-eaters, the cause apparently being the great numbers 

 of cattle that come for a limited season to graze in that 

 country, and a scarcity of other prey at the time when 

 these are absent, combined with the unusually convenient 

 cover for tigers alongside of most of the roads. The man- 

 eaters of the Central Provinces rarely confine themselves 

 solely to human food, though some have almost done so to 

 my own knowledge. 



