THE TIGER. 63 



own compounds were often stalked, but from their being no 

 recorded instance of accidents, I fancy that Tigers, like the 

 rest of the Cat-tribe, are imbued with that insatiable curiosity 

 that housewives lament in the domestic puss. The compounds 

 were one and all surrounded with stone walls, some three or 

 four feet in height, and one evening, leaning up against the 

 outside of one of these below the messhouse, while talking to 

 the adjutant and a young civilian, our conversation was brought 

 to an abrupt termination by the former officer suddenly taking 

 to his heels, bolting up the messhouse hill as fast as his legs 

 enabled him. Left behind we gazed on each other in blank 

 amazement, looked about us and were about to resume our 

 conversation when our friend, having reached his goal, turned 

 round, and though far too exhausted to utter a word, pointed 

 apparently straight at us. ' Something round the corner, may 

 be,' said my companion, but as we did not know what it might 

 be, we vaulted inside the wall and peeped over, just in time to 

 see a Tiger creeping stealthily along under cover of the wall 

 towards a deep gully. 



"A shout soon quickened his movements. It turned out 

 that our friend while talking had caught sight of the brute's 

 face as he peered round the angle of the wall, taking stock of 

 us. Why he did not warn us at the time he started on his 

 flight, he did not seem inclined to explain, but the construction 

 we put on his behaviour was that he preferred saving his own 

 skin at the expense of one or other of us. Dining at the mess 

 was, from its exposed position, rather an infliction, unless you 

 sent your bedding and passed the night there. The com- 

 pound-wall was rather higher than usual, and as the house 

 occupied a commanding, though solitary, position, with a ruin 

 between it and the other station-houses, many a startle have 

 people had when leaving the hospitable roof. One night on 

 coming out, I found a Tiger crouched on the walls of the ruin 



