THE TIGER. 149 



to the ground. Such was the violence of the shock, 

 that my servant, who sat behind, was thrown out, 

 and one of my guns went overboard. The struggles 

 of my elephant to crush his still resisting foe, who 

 had fixed one paw on his eye, were so energetic, 

 that I was obliged to hold on with all my strength, 

 to keep myself in the houdah. The second barrel, 

 too, of the gun which I still retained in my hand, 

 went off in the scuffle, the ball passing close to the 

 mahout's ear, whose situation, poor fellow, was any 

 thing but enviable. As soon as my elephant was 

 prevailed upon to leave the killing part of the busi- 

 ness to the sportsmen, they gave the roughly used 

 tiger the coup de grace. It was a very fine female, 

 with the most beautiful skin I ever saw." 



We shall only give another sketch of a tiger hunt ; 

 our last is told by a gentleman, this one shall be from 

 the pen of a lady, herself the heroine of the chase, 

 and will be curious, as we believe it is the only in- 

 stance upon record. 



" We had elephants, guns, balls, and all other ne- 

 cessaries prepared, and about seven in the morning 

 we set off. The soil was exactly like that we had 

 gone over last night ; our course lay N. W. The 

 jungle was generally composed of corinda bushes, 

 which were stunty and thin, and looked like ragged 

 thorn bushes ; nothing could be more desolate in ap- 

 pearance : it seemed as if we had got to the farthest 

 limits of cultivation, or the haunts of man. At times, 

 the greener bunches of jungle, the usual abodes of 



