LIONS AND TIGERS. 239 



liis name ; but it is an adjective uttered with terror, 

 and not respect ; it is the royalty of the tyrant, and 

 not the king. To him women and children even are 

 not sacred, and he sacrifices them with truly Homeric 

 carnage. Like a wolf in the sheepfold he enters the 

 houses of some of the native villages, killing for 

 the mere pleasure of seeing and tasting warm blood, 

 like that king of old who killed two hundred chickens 

 that he might have a perfect soup ! Caring only for 

 the freshest-killed meat he disdains anything else, and 

 when hunger torments him again he rushes to new 

 hecatombs. Like all the cat family, he never thinks of 

 the morrow, but, in real Bohemian fashion, lives for 

 to-day only. 



In one of these little Indian villages, where even yet 

 fire-arms are a cause of wonder and envy, a large man- 

 eating tiger — Doo-lu-Shad-uee, in their lingo — had for 

 several nights in succession visited the different houses, 

 and hardly a family but mourned the loss of some 

 member of its circle. The tiger carried his audacity 

 so far as to come in broad daylight, and, like a wolf 

 in the fold, entered the houses while the men were in 

 the fields, and killed right and left. 



I was in the neighborhood, and hearing of it, took 

 Thursday and my two best rifles, and went to the na- 

 tives' aid. These poor devils had relied on their sor- 

 cerer's incantations to avert the evil spirit ; and he was 

 now at his wits' end, and glad to see us, you may be 



