BOILING THE "DON'S" FAT 313 



persistency was over, would not have been sorry had he been alive and 

 unhurt again. What would our jungles be without the Don ? 



On the way to Atticulpoor, where we were going to meet Captains S. 

 and D., Dowlutpeary, the elephant who had the honour of carrying the 

 fallen hero, behaved very badly. My friend and I were on the pad with the 

 tiger, when a gust of wind carried away his sun-hat ; this alarmed her in her 

 already excited state, and away she stampeded despite the mahout's efforts 

 to stop her. We hung on to the tiger, but all nearly came off together. 

 We arrived at Atticulpoor in a very lop - sided condition through her 

 vagaries, the pad .and the tiger having slipped to one side, whilst we sat 

 perched on the other to maintain some sort of equilibrium. 



We cut off the Don's head, leaving a good neck, and next day managed 

 to stuff it pretty fairly, using arsenical soap and filling it with coir, and 

 paying it constant attention until set and dry. We were astonished at his 

 fatness, and we set to work to boil him down. We got two large pots, and 

 extemporised a fireplace under a banian-tree ; here we grilled the pieces of 

 fat in one pot, running off the pure grease into the other, in which it got a 

 final boiling. If boiled until so hot that a drop of water flies from the 

 surface as from molten lead any fat will keep good for months. 



Two rolls of fat like those from the inside of a hog were the pikes de 

 resistance ; the rest was cut from his inside and flanks, and the out-turn of 

 the boil was twenty-four ordinary quart beer-bottles, or four imperial gallons 

 of pure grease : the natives believe it possesses wonderful medicinal virtues 

 in rheumatism and cattle diseases. From six to nine bottles is a fair yield 

 for a tiger ; but, as my men said, the Don's fat was " the fat of a thousand 

 kine." Huge tiger though he was, he only measured 9 feet from tip of 

 nose to tip of tail ; but his muscular development was enormous. 



