The Tiger 251 



common tigers, and must be sought for morning, noon, and 

 night. But I found no tracks save in the one place where 

 he had crossed the ravine the evening before, and gone off 

 into thick jungle. 



"On my return to camp, just as I was sitting down to 

 breakfast, some Banjaras [carriers, and probably gypsies] 

 from a place called Deckna — about a mile and a half from 

 our camp — came running in to say that one of their com- 

 panions had been taken out of the middle of their drove of 

 bullocks by the tiger, just as they were starting from their 

 night's encampment. The elephant had not been unhar- 

 nessed, and securing some food and a bottle of claret, I was 

 not two minutes in getting under way again. The edge of 

 a low savanna, covered with long grass and intersected by 

 a nala, was the scene of this last assassination, and a broad 

 trail of crushed-down grass showed where the body had been 

 dragged down to the nak'i. No tracking was required. It 

 was all horribly plain, and the trail did not lead quite into 

 the ravine, which had steep sides, but turned and went 

 alongside of it into some very long grass reaching nearly 

 up to the howdah. Here Sarju Parshad, a large govern- 

 ment mukna [tuskless male elephant] I was then riding, 

 kicked violently at the ground and trumpeted, and imme- 

 diately the long grass began to wave ahead. We pushed 

 on at full speed, stepping as we went over the ghastly 

 half-eaten body of the Banjara. But the cover was dread- 

 fully thick, and though I caught a glimpse of a yellow 

 object as it jumped down into the neiki, it was not in time 

 to fire. It was some little time before we could get the 

 elephant down the bank and follow the broad plain foot- 



