LETTER XVIII. UNITED PROVINCES 

 TERAI TIGERS AND SIR JOHN HEWETT 



SIMLA, April 28th, 1912. 



SHOOTING at tigers from a howdah has never 

 appealed to me. I write " shooting at " ad- 

 visedly, for it is rare to get a tiger to oneself when 

 shooting from an elephant. It generally means 

 several people firing at the same beast at the same 

 moment. Besides, it is a shocking waste of tigers, 

 just as a deer drive in Scotland is a shocking waste 

 of stags. But my chief objection to shooting 

 from elephants is that the real joy of tiger-shooting 

 is absent. There is so little " even odds " about 

 it. Someone has said that it is as safe as shooting 

 a mad dog from the top of an omnibus. I will 

 not go so far as that, but danger is certainly 

 reduced to a minimum. 



For me one of the great charms of big-game 

 shooting in India lies in being more or less alone 

 in the jungle, awaiting the early dawn when man 

 awakes and the jungle goes to sleep, when the 

 golden sun of India begins to radiate warmth 

 and glorious colouring. The noontide rest in the 

 shade, preferably in solitude and well away 

 from " the loud laugh that speaks the vacant 

 mind," the joyful awakening of the jungle at sun- 

 set and the awe-inspiring, unexplainable noises 

 of the jungle at night all are practically denied 



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