244 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



the tiger and myself to take with me to Seistan, it 

 would be a yad-dasht (memento) I would treasure 

 to the end of my life." 



We had a truly awful job in taking off the 

 pelt and head in the dark and "toting" it to 

 camp, but it was a proud moment for Ibrahim 

 when, before an admiring audience, he unfolded 

 the skin and exhibited the head, with eyes yet 

 unglazed, in the light of the camp fire. Next 

 day I took the photo he wanted, which never 

 came out. As for Ibrahim, he never saw his 

 beloved Seistan again nor the girl he had just 

 married, for he died at Birjand on his way back. 

 I heard of his death a month after reaching 

 England, and it was a heavy blow indeed. Poor 

 Ibrahim, for whom no day was too long, no chance 

 too hopeless, as long as there was prospect of 

 a shot, even when hope had departed. 



It was late when the tiger was shot, and I 

 had no ready means of taking his measurement 

 as it ought to be taken. He was, however, 

 certainly as big as a good Indian tiger; the 

 skin when pegged out measured eleven feet six. 

 Eowland Ward told me that the only differences 

 he could see between it and the Indian type were 

 the somewhat thicker coat of the Persian specimen, 

 and the fact that the skull was a little broader. 

 The coat is of course nothing like that of a winter 



