TIGERS UNAGGRESSIVE 7 



wild India of the Sunderbunds. It is quite unlike 

 anything I have seen before. Not nearly so beau- 

 tiful as many other places, but singularly wild and 

 uncanny. The heat was severe, and I found 

 sitting on the machdn during the hottest time of 

 the day, in a scorching sun without shade of any 

 sort, very trying. Once or twice I had to walk 

 four or five miles over paddy-fields in the blazing 

 sun and felt rather queer. I am old for this game, 

 but I revel in heat and love the sun, and have 

 scraped through without a touch of fever. What 

 struck me most was everyone's utter indifference 

 to the fact that tigers were within a couple of 

 hundred yards of us. We never even took the 

 rifles out of their covers, and all the men who 

 built the machans were quite unconcerned. I 

 suggested that at least one of us should load and 

 keep a look-out; but my friends smiled and said 

 no tiger ever dreamed of charging unless disturbed 

 and angered. I suppose they know all about it. 

 Be that as it may, tiger-shooting is the king of 

 sport, and I am glad indeed to have taken part 

 in it. 



I shall arrive at Calcutta on Sunday, January 

 3rd, 1909, having left on the previous Sunday 

 night. Forty hours' journey each way and a 

 right and left at ^tigers. 



