142 THE TIGER. 



Here couched the panting tiger, on the watch ; 

 Impatient but unmoved, his fireball eyes 

 Made horrid twilight in the sunless jungle, 

 Till on the heedless buffalo he sprang, 

 Dragged the low-bellowing monster to his lair 

 Crashed through his ribs at once into his heart 

 Quaffed the hot blood, and gorged the quivering flesh, 

 Till drunk he lay, as powerless as the carcass. 



Where civilization has commenced, the tiger has 

 learned to prowl around the villages, and attack the 

 cattle-folds, to seize indiscriminately whatever comes 

 in his way. Travelling parties are followed, and a 

 luckless straggler seldom escapes ; the baggage- 

 trains, consisting of troops of oxen and buffaloea 

 trained to the yoke, are closely watched, and though 

 attended during the day with drums and noisy in- 

 struments, and during night with torches, a journey 

 is seldom performed without some accident or at- 

 tack. 



In the New Indian settlements, the ravages com- 

 mitted by the tigers were such, that active means 

 were necessary for their destruction, and a price of 

 ten rupees was put upon the head of each. Various 

 methods were employed by the natives to destroy 

 this animal, which could only be partially successful ; 

 but the improved use of the rifle has rendered the 

 more thickly inhabited parts comparatively safe from 

 them. Among the inventions formerly in use, and 

 still practised in many parts, the most successful 

 was that of shooting them with a poisoned arrow, 

 from a bow, placed so as to be disengaged by the- 



