I went on meditatively- 



170 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



" It was before I enlisted, sahib, before I left my native 

 village — I have scarcely been near the place since — that 

 I first met a tiger face to face on foot ; and this was the 

 fiercest and most devihsh of all the beasts of my own country 

 of Nepal." 



" Well, havildah, let me have the story. It was in the 

 rains, was it not ? " 



-" How fine the jungles must 

 look now with the tall bright 

 green grass still growing up- 

 wards, and the flower-heads 

 just beginning to swell out. 

 One could not see to shoot 

 much now in the grass jungles, 

 not even from the back of an 

 elephant ? What a happy 

 time the animals must have, 

 with plenty to eat and drink 

 everywhere, no long journeys 

 to make to search for succulent 

 grass and water-pools, as they 

 have to make in the hot 

 weather." 



" Yet there is danger from other animals, sahib. The 

 tiger and leopard are just as dangerous, and can ap- 

 proach without a sound when the wind is blowing through 

 the grass stems and the rain is pattering and swishing 

 down. It was during a break in the rains in this month 

 that the man-eater I am telling you about visited our 

 village." 



" But you have not begun the story yet, havildah," I 

 said, wishing to keep the old man to the point and get this 

 yarn out of him if possible. 

 " Huzur, I will commence." 



" It was long years ago now, and I was sixteen years of 

 age at the time. I was not thinking of 'listing then. My 

 father owned a good house and several fields and a consider- 

 able number of cows and goats. He was a big man in the 

 village. I was his eldest son, and already I took a consider- 

 able share of the work in the fields. But my chief pleasure 

 was hunting. Like you, sahib, from my early youth I was 

 very keen on shooting animals, and was a firm friend of our 

 village shikari, an old man who had shot every kind of animal 



