THE TIGER. 277 



hill with a belt of fires, and feeding him with nightly 

 kine, till half a hundred elephants, carrying the cream 

 of a vice-regal camp, swept him out into the plain, 

 where he fell riddled by a storm of bullets from several 

 hundred virgin rifles. He had the honour of being 

 painted by a Landseer, by the blaze of torchlight, under 

 the shadow of the British standard ; and my howdah 

 bore witness for many a day, in a bullet-hole through 

 both sides of it, to the accuracy of aim of some gallant 

 member of the staff ! 



At this season tigers sometimes venture very close 

 to large towns, and even to the European stations. 

 Several tigers have been shot within the walls of the 

 town and station of Mandla, and in the *' Pau" gardens 

 round about ; and at Seoni, I formed one of a party who 

 drove a large tiger out of a tobacco field, within a 

 stone's throw of a considerable village, and shot him in 

 the main street thereof. There was nothing but fields 

 of short green wheat for many miles round about this 

 place ; and the only reason we could discover for so 

 singular an appearance of a tiger among the habitations 

 of man was that he had received a slight wound a few 

 days before. 



But it is not until the greater part of the grass has 

 been burnt in the jungles, and a hot sun has contracted 

 the supply of water to the neighbourhood of the great 

 rivers, that regular tiger hunting can be commenced 

 with a fair prospect of success. At this season, having 

 discovered a tract where tigers are reported, a good 

 central place should be selected for a camp, in 

 the deep shade of some mango grove near a village, 

 or under the still more grateful canopy of some 

 spreading banyan tree. The graciousness of nature in 



