286 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



merely retreating a few steps and shaking lier head at 

 the contortions of the tiger. There is no more striking 

 incident in tiger shooting than to witness the fearful and 

 impotent rage of a tiger with a broken back. He 

 cannot reach beyond a short circle, but within that 

 limit stones, trees, and the very earth are seized and 

 worried with fearful savageness, and the wretched brute 

 will horribly mangle even his own limbs. It is too 

 ghastly to look on long ; and, though the agony is that 

 of a monster who has caused so much himself, a 

 merciful bullet in the head should quickly end the 

 horrid scene. 



These were regular cattle-eating tigers, and perhaps 

 had not been molesting the monkeys. On another 

 occasion, however, I was much struck with the caution 

 of the monkeys under very trying circumstances. I 

 had tracked a man-eating tigress into a deep ravine 

 near the villacfe of Pali in the Seoni district. She 

 was not quite a confirmed man-eater, but had killed 

 nine or ten persons in the preceding few months. She 

 had a cub of about six months old with her, and it 

 was when this cub was very young and unable to move 

 about that want of other erame had driven her to kill 

 her first human prey. I knew when I entered the 

 ravine that this was her regular haunt ; for, though 

 every bush outside had been stripped of its berries 

 l)y a colony of monkeys, I saw them perched on the 

 rocks above the ravine wistfully looking down on the 

 bushes at the bottom, which had strewed the ground 

 with their ripened fruit. They accompanied me along 

 the ravine on the top of the rocks, as if perfectly 

 knowing the value of their assistance in getting the 

 tigress — and better markers I never had. I should 



