THE BIOGRAPHY OF A TIGER n 



past an apparently endless succession of jungle-smothered 

 mountain ranges till lost in the infinitely distant purple 

 haze below the dull red orb of the setting sun. 



A profound and solemn silence, that is but accentuated 

 by the faint ceaseless trilling and chirping of cicada and 

 crickets, broods over the wild scene. 



As the sun dips below the horizon, a roosting peacock 

 cries mournfully somewhere far away. 



The distant bark of some wandering deer floats up 

 from the depths of the gorge. 



A cold air comes soughing upwards through a pre- 

 cipitous gully, creaking the bamboos uneasily, and stirring 

 the dry brown leaves of wild plantain that clothe the 

 darkening slopes around. A sense of melancholy super- 

 venes. Unarmed as we are it seems time that we sought 

 the lights of camp ; for these weird surroundings and huge 

 silent hills are suggestive of things that may lurk in the 

 deepening shadows, and seem to watch us with invisible 

 eyes. 



So do we enter the forests of the Melghat and arrive 

 at the confines of the tiger's own domaHn. 



It is an early December morning in the Sdtpuras, The 

 still air of the deep glen of the Sipna is bitterly cold, and 

 dank with surcharged dews that have heavily saturated 

 the long fresh grass and surrounding jungle, and the calm 

 surface of a long pool that lies along the grey bed of the 

 shingly mountain stream is shrouded in clinging white 

 vapour; the temperature of the water, sun-warmed as it 

 is by day, being several degrees higher than that of the 

 atmosphere at dawn. 



Overhanging the river-bed from either bank, and help- 

 ing to wrap the scene in yet deeper shadow, stretches a 

 long, vista-enclosing fringe of great umbrageous trees, their 

 gnarled roots washed bare by the mountain freshets that 



