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ON THE TRAIL OF A MAN-EATER 



Fifty years ago, when Colonel Gordon Cumrning, then 

 a young man, was sent out to join his regiment in the 

 country of the Mahrattas, India was full of tigers, bears, 

 wild boars, and other fierce beasts, who were the terror of 

 the native villages. The district is hilly and rocky, and 

 abounds in livers and thick jungles, which afford shelter 

 for even the largest animals, who would comedown at night 

 and carry off goats, oxen, or even men. The English sol- 

 diers asked nothing better than to be allowed to put a stop 

 to this state of things, and many were the adventures 

 that happened to them in their shooting expeditions. 



Here and there, indeed, an old man was to be found 

 who, like old Kamah, was at peace with the tigers, and 

 looked on any injury done them as an insult to himself. 

 ' I have no quarrel with tigers,' he exclaimed indignantly, 

 when the hunters found him beating his fifteen-year-old 

 son for shooting a tiger who had carried off a tame 

 buffalo. ' I live in the jungle, and the tigers are my 

 friends. I never injured one of them, they never injured 

 me ; and while there was peace between us I went among 

 them without fear. But now, now ' 



Kamah's view of the tigers was, however, not common ; 

 and, in general, the natives would gladly turn out to help 

 in hunting down their natural enemies. 



Sometimes platforms were built in the trees, carefully 

 chosen near the track the tiger was likely to follow, but 

 this was not always very safe, for tigers are great jumpers, 



