298 THE MAN-EATER CARRIES ORE A PRIEST. 



bankment of a small channel drawn from the river near Atticulpoor, .and 

 supplying the Hurdenhully tank with water. The ground was hard and 

 much trodden by cattle, and we looked for some time for the tigress's tracks 

 in vain, till the distant caw of a crow attracted us to the place where we 

 found the man's remains ; only the soles of his feet, the palms of his hands, 

 his head, and a few bones were left. "We lost no time in taking up the 

 tigress's track, and used every endeavour to run her down, as we had over 

 a hundred men ready at camp to beat her out could we but mark her into 

 some practicable cover ; but though she had eaten so much she had recrossed 

 the river as usual, and had gone into the jungles towards the hills, where 

 there was no chance of finding her. 



About a week after this the priest of a small temple ten miles due west 

 from Morlay, and in comparatively open country where a tiger had not been 

 heard of for years, was jogging along on his riding-bullock one morning, to 

 sweep out and garnish the small jungle-temple in which he officiated, and 

 to present to " Yennay Hollay Koombappah " the offerings of the simple 

 villagers whose faith was placed in that deity. SuddeDiy a tigress with 

 her cub stepped into the path. The terrified bullock kicked off his rider 

 and galloped back to the village, whilst the tigress — for it was the dreaded 

 Iyenpoor man-eater, far out of her ordinary haunts — seized the hapless 

 poojdrce (priest), and carried him off to the bed of a deep ravine near. 



Upon hearing next day of this, my men and I thought it must be some 

 other tiger, as this fiend had managed with such cunning that we did not 

 then know that she had a cub ; and it was not till we found this out sub- 

 sequently that we traced this death to her also. Up to this time she must 

 have left her cub in the thick jungles along the hills, making her rapid 

 hunting forays alone, as the cub had never been with her before ; and this 

 accounted for her invariably crossing the river and making for the hills 

 after a raid. The absence of the tigress from the vicinity of Morlay 

 during September and October was probably caused partly by her keeping 

 out of the way when this cub was very young. 



The next death was of a horrible description. Several villagers of 

 Ramasamoodrum were grazing their cattle in a swampy hollow in the jungle 

 near the temple, when the tigress pounced upon one man who was separated 

 from the others. She in some way missed her aim at his throat, seized the 

 shoulder, and then, either in jerking him, or by a blow, threw him up on 

 to a thicket several feet from the ground. Here the wounded and bleeding- 

 wretch was caught by thorny creepers; whilst the tigress, as generally hap- 

 pens when any contretemps takes place, relinquished the attack and made 

 off. The other men and the cattle had lied at the first alarm. The village 



