ROUND THE CAMP FIRE 315 



tiger shikar, gone through an immense amount of hard 

 work to no purpose, which had finally resulted in the 

 incapacitating of one of them by jungle fever. Although 

 almost all their available time two months had been 

 spent in working for tigers, they had only succeeded in 

 shooting one and that one by mere chance. On the 

 other hand, as regards less noble game, hard work had 

 met with its reward. That tigers were there is proved by 

 the fact that a week or two later a local official a man of 

 no experience in shikar following almost in their foot- 

 steps, had shot seven, while the total number of these 

 animals killed in that district during the same year 

 amounted to over twenty. 



Some of his experiences, angrily related by the dis- 

 appointed sportsman, were of an extremely diverting 

 nature, though in no wise unfamiliar to those acquainted 

 with oriental subtleties. But, divested of their humorous 

 wrapping, these are pills, at the swallowing of which the 

 Englishman makes a very wry face, and at such pernicious 

 influences as they reveal his gorge rises in indignation and 

 disgust. 



Accustomed to a mode of dealing at least fair and 

 square, we are peculiarly liable to be deceived by the easy 

 hypocrisy that, generally speaking, comes so naturally to 

 the Eastern mind ; so, although the following matter is the 

 reflection of no novel experience, it may have its use in 

 resetting the edge of one's memory, or serving as a hint to 

 those whose "tender, trustful years" may render them prone 

 to appraise their Aryan brethren and some others by 

 their own standards. 



In order to appreciate the following remarks, it should 

 be remembered that the tiger that magnificent brute 

 to whose pursuit even the jaded, blase sportsman returns 

 with a never-failing interest is a creature of remarkably 

 open modes of life. Under favourable circumstances his 

 probable line of action can be previously determined with 



