70 SAMBHALPUR BISON NEPAL 



assured that it was the height of imprudence to 

 do without it, but I very much question whether 

 I should have got fever even without quinine. 

 The country is well watered, numerous streams 

 feeding the Sardah River, and in one place I 

 found what I have not seen except in Kashmir 

 a beautiful bubbling spring of drinkable water. 



Tigers, I am quite certain, are plentiful in the 

 district, but the methods adopted on the occasion 

 of my visit precluded the possibility of getting one. 

 I am inclined to think that they are mere cattle- 

 lifters; their home is on the low wooded spurs of 

 the Himalayas, and they only come down at night 

 to kill and eat cattle and get back to their mountain 

 fastnesses before daylight. It is only occasionally, 

 I fancy, that a lazy, over-fed one lies up in the 

 plains. One, and only one such, we came across. 

 The poor brute was so gorged that he made no 

 attempt to bolt, but tried to hide in a bog covered 

 with reeds some 10 feet high and very dense. I 

 have never taken part in shooting from a howdah 

 before, and if the one occasion on which I saw a 

 tiger so shot is a good specimen of what howdah- 

 shooting means, I hope never to take part in it 

 again. It was simply disgusting butchery. The 

 unfortunate tiger was up to his belly in sticky 

 mud, the small reed jungle in which he hid was 

 completely surrounded by elephants, and every 

 time the poor brute showed his nose, everyone fired 

 two barrels at him. I am happy to say that his 

 death cannot be laid at my door, as I did not fire. 

 I saw the skin in camp, and it was more like a 

 sieve than a tiger skin de gustibus non est dis- 

 putandum. I dare say shooting tigers from an 



