BACK IN THE JUNGLES AGAIN 185 



were followed by a glorious two months' tour in the 

 Himalaya. 



The episode in question took place in May. As I have 

 previously mentioned in these notes I was given to sitting 

 up for game in a machan or otherwise owing to the facilities 

 this method afforded of watching the jungle inhabitants 

 going about their several ways under undisturbed conditions. 

 I had already got rather bored with the monotony at night, 

 but as long as daylight lasted I enjoyed it. On the trip in 

 question through the lovely Dun (Siwalik) forests I did a 

 good lot of sitting up and at the instigation of my shikari I 

 tried a method for tiger which I had not practised before. 

 These Dun shikaris knew a great deal about the habits of the 

 local tigers, then more plentiful than now. They knew 

 their haunts and the paths by which they went on their 

 nightly search for game. They could thus place a rifle in a 

 likely spot from which he might be able to watch the tiger 

 on his evening prowl, which to me was worth any amount of 

 sitting up over " kills." I tried this method several times 

 and twice saw tiger and once a leopard. Only once, however, 

 did I get a shot, on the occasion I will now recount. It was 

 on the island I referred to above. I spent a week in the 

 neighbourhood on some investigation work I was engaged 

 upon at the time. There was a forked tree situated at the 

 northernmost point of the island standing on the edge of the 

 stony nullah bed. The fork was situated about twenty-five 

 feet up and was of such a nature that with the addition of a 

 pillow (covered in a khaki pillow-case) from my camp bed 

 it made a most comfortable seat with convenient rests for 

 my feet. It was better than any machan and had the 

 additional value that it left the place entirely undisturbed. 

 Building a machan even of the flimsiest means men about 

 chopping branches and making a noise, the proceedings 

 being quite sufficient to scare away a tiger in the vicinity. 

 There was a glorious moon that week and twice I had 

 adjourned to the tree at four o'clock in the afternoon and 

 stayed there till about ten o'clock without result. That the 

 tree was close to a tiger walk was shown by the footmarks 

 passing and repassing on a small path which ran across the 

 nullah just missing the spit of the island. On my last night 

 but one I determined to try again and climbed up into my 

 tree at about 4.30 p.m. It was far too hot to make it neces- 

 sary to go any earlier as no tiger would be on the move till 



