254 Wild Beasts 



Instantly the tiger started up with a short roar and gal- 

 loped off through the jungle. I gave him right and left at 

 once, which told loudly ; but he went on till he saw the 

 pad-elephant blocking the road he meant to escape by, and 

 then he turned and charged back at me with horrible 

 roars. It was very difficult to see him among the crashing 

 bushes, and he was within twenty yards before I fired 

 again. This dropped him into one of the channels, but he 

 picked himself up, and came on as savagely, though more 

 slowly, than before. I was now in the act of covering him 

 with the large shell rifle, when suddenly Sarjii spun 

 round, and I found myself looking the opposite way, while 

 a worrying sound behind me, and the frantic movements 

 of the elephant, told me I had a fellow-passenger on board 

 I might well have dispensed with. All I could do in the 

 way of holding on barely sufficed to prevent myself and 

 guns from being pitched out ; and it was some time before 

 Sarju, finding he could not kick him off, paused to think 

 what he would do next. I seized that placid interval to 

 lean over behind and put the muzzle of my rifle to the 

 tiger's head, blowing it into fifty pieces with the large 

 shell." 



In Assam and other parts of Indo-China, and in the 

 interior of Malacca, the natives are treated by tigers much 

 after the same manner as those of India were in the days 

 before modern inventions had modified the views of these 

 brutes upon mankind. 



A pit is an effectual device for taking tigers, but most 

 descriptions of the way in which it is arranged are evi- 

 dently incorrect. Malays, however, procure most of the 



