A REAL TIGER STORY 231 



matter. Never lose your temper if you can help it, especially 

 when out with a party. There are bound to be contretemps. 

 Mistakes will be made, and you may be the sufferer. But, 

 save in flagrant cases of disobedience, never swear at 

 your men. Bear in mind the fact that they know infinitely 

 more about the jungle lore of the forest than you do. Very 

 often they will carry out your orders about the direction a 

 beat should be taken, or as to beating a certain jungle, 

 when they know beforehand that the result will be failure, 

 or that there is nothing in the jungle to come out. This 

 being so, you cut a rather sorry figure in their eyes, and also 

 lose their respect, if you swear and browbeat men who 

 could have foretold the result before the beat started ; 

 besides displaying your great ignorance of the habits of 

 the animals you are out to shoot, and of perhaps the 

 commonest rudiments of jungle lore as known to the local 

 men. The Collector's story illustrates this point to per- 

 fection. 



" Lunch," he continued, " was a poor affair that day, 

 made uncomfortable solely by the ignorance of two of the 

 party. And you don't want displays of petty temper when 

 the thermometer is standing in the neighbourhood of no 

 degrees in the shade and the hot wind is blowing with a 

 furnace heat. 



" The first beat after lunch was about a couple of 

 miles from those of the morning. The plan of campaign 

 necessitated the four rifles on the howdah elephants 

 taking up positions so as to command a small ravine 

 and narrow path right at the foot of the outermost of 

 the foothills, for which a tiger, on being disturbed, would 

 assuredly make. A strip of sal forest, and a considerable 

 patch of grass, with two small areas of sissu copse, through 

 which ran the small stream of water which formed the whole 

 ' river ' at this season — the greater part of the great river- 

 bed being a waste of shingle and grass — formed the country 

 to be beaten. As the beat had been arranged, the ravine 

 and path could just be covered by four rifles. When this 

 disposition was explained, however, the two men who had 

 fallen foul of the shikaris before lunch, asked to be allowed 

 to go in the fine of beating elephants, as ' they might then 

 see something of a tiger, if one was afoot,' which was their 

 method of expressing that they did not think much of the 

 way the beat had been arranged. To avoid disagreements, 



