THE TIGER. 69 
ball passing close to the mahout’s ear, whose situation, poor 
fellow, was anything but enviable. As soon as my Elephant 
was prevailed upon to leave the killing part of the business to 
the sportsmen, they gave the roughly used Tiger the coup de 
grace. It was a very fine female, with the most beautiful skin 
I ever saw.” 
Although in this instance the whole party escaped scot-free 
from the Tiger’s charge, such encounters are decidedly risky, 
and should be avoided when possible. On this subject Colonel 
R. H. Percy writes as follows in the ‘‘ Badminton Library”: 
‘To hear of Tigers making good their charges and springing on 
to Elephants’ heads sounds very nice and exciting, but nothing is 
more demoralising to the Elephants, especially at the beginning 
of a trip, and every precaution should be taken to save your 
Elephants from getting mauled ; for, if injured, many of them 
never recover confidence, and become absolutely worthless for 
Tiger-shooting afterwards. Forsyth mentions an instance of 
an Elephant dying of wounds received from a Tiger. It is all 
very fine for a sportsman to take a charge, standing in a howda 
perched on the back of a large tusker ; but it is a very different 
thing for the opium-sodden nerves of an unarmed mahout 
riding a small timid pad-Elephant. Close order is the only 
safe formation for pad-Elephants, and should invariably be 
adopted. If the Tiger is marked into a particular bush, the 
line may be halted, and the howda-Elephants alone be taken 
up to engage him; but until the mahouts have thorough con- 
fidence in the guns, a fight is better avoided.” 
Our account of the Tiger may be brought to a conclusion 
with an extract from Dr. John Anderson’s narrative of the 
expedition to Western Yun-nan, relating to the boldness of a 
man-eater. ‘‘ While we were at dinner one evening at Bhamo,” 
writes the narrator, ‘a cry was raised that a Tiger was in the 
town, and we at once started with our rifles, and were met by 
