274 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



and when tliis is not the case the sport generally 

 resolves itself into an imdio^nified sneakino- about the 

 outskirts of the covers, in the hope of getting an 

 occasional pot-shot from a secure position. In this 

 method of hunting many more tigers are wounded 

 than are finally secured, the only danger lying in 

 following up a wounded animal, which is usually 

 avoided ; and thus an innocuous animal is often con- 

 verted into a scourge of the country-side. A very 

 few sportsmen do, for a short period of their lives, 

 make a practice of hunting and shooting tigers really 

 on foot ; but they are seldom very successful, and 

 sooner or later get killed, or have such narrow escapes 

 as to cure them of such silly folly for the remainder 

 of their days. A man on foot has no chance what- 

 ever in thick jungle with a tiger that is bent on 

 killing him. He cannot see a yard before him, and 

 is himself conspicuous to every sense of the brute, 

 who can completely hide in a place that looks scarcely 

 enough to conceal a rat, and can move at will through 

 the thickest cover without the slightest sound or stir. 

 At the same time the sportsman who as a rule uses 

 an elephant in thick cover will find quite enough 

 opportunities, in special cases, of testing his nerve on 

 foot, particularly if he marks down and tracks his 

 own game instead of employing shikaris to do so. 

 Even on the elephant all is not perfect safety, in- 

 stances being not rare of elephants being completely 

 pulled down by tigers, while accidents from the running 

 away of the ele^Dhant in tree jungle are still more 

 common. Much of the excitement of the sport dejDends 

 on the sportsman's method of attacking the tiger. Some 

 men box a tiger up in a corner and push in at all 



