248 Wild Beasts 



" As soon as I could ride in the howdah [Captain For- 

 syth was suffering from an accident at this time], and long 

 before I was able to do more than hobble on foot, I marched 

 to a place called Charkhcra, where the last kill had been 

 reported. My usually straggling following was now com- 

 pressed into a close body, preceded and followed by bag- 

 gage-elephants, and protected by a guard of police with 

 muskets, peons with my spare guns, and a whole posse of 

 matchlock shikaris. Two deserted villages were passed on 

 the road, and heaps of stones at intervals showed where some 

 traveller had been struck down. A better hunting-ground 

 for a man-eater certainly could not be found. Thick, scrubby 

 teak jungle closed in the road on both sides; and alongside 

 of it for a great part of the way wound a narrow, deep 

 watercourse, overshadowed by jamare bushes, and with 

 here and there a small pool of water still left. I hunted 

 along this nala the whole way, and found many old tracks 

 of a very large male tiger, which the shikaris declared to 

 be those of the man-eater. There were none more recent, 

 however, than several days. Charkhera was also deserted 

 on account of the tiger, and there was no shade to speak 

 of ; but it was the most central place within reach of the 

 usual haunts of the brute, so I encamped there, and sent 

 the -baggage-elephants back to fetch provisions. In the 

 evening I was startled by a messenger from a place called 

 La, on the Moran River, nearly in the direction I had come 

 from, who said that one of a party of pilgrims who had 

 been travelling unsuspectingly by a jungle road, had been 

 carried off by the tiger close to that place. Early next 

 morning I started off with two elephants, and arrived at 



