278 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



furnishing such plentiful shade at this arid season 

 cannot but be admired. It is just at the time when 

 all nature begins to quiver in the fierce sun and burning 

 blasts of April that the banyan and peepiil figs, and 

 the ever present mango, begin to throw out a fresh crop 

 of leaves, those of the first tree being then moreover 

 charged with a thick milky juice that forms an im- 

 penetrable non-conductor to the sun's rays. 



Eiding up to his camp, pitched in the cool shadowy 

 depths of some grove like this, the sportsman will 

 probably find assembled the village headman, with a 

 small train of cultivators and cowherds, waiting to 

 receive him with some simple oftering — a pot of milk, 

 or a bunch of plantains from his garden. If he is 

 welcome, tales will not be wantiuo- of the neio^hbourino- 

 tigers — how Ram Sinsfh's cow was taken out of the 

 herd a few days before, or Bhyron the village watch, 

 o'oinof on an errand, went down for a drink to the river, 

 and there came on a tigress with her cubs bathing by 

 its brink. That youth himself will chime in, and 

 graphically describe how he took to a tree and was 

 kept there all night — the same being probably a 

 euphemism for a night passed with some boon com- 

 panions at a neighbouring grog-shop. The usual haunts 

 of the tiger will be described ; and the size of his foot- 

 prints and width of his head be drawn to a greatly 

 exaggerated scale. The shikari of the neighbourhood 

 will be present, or can be sent for — a long gaunt figure, 

 clad in a ragged shirt of Mhowa green, with a dingy 

 turban twisted round his shaggy locks, and furnished 

 with the usual long small-bored m.atchlock, with its 

 bulky powder-flask of bison horn, and smaller supply 

 of fine priming powder kept carefully in a horn of the 



