HOW I KILLED THE TIGER. 13 



then superintended the operation of skinning him, 

 after which he was cut open, as I was very 

 desirous of seeing the effect of the bullet. I was 

 greatly astonished to see that the whole of the 

 tiger's inside was blown into a jelly. I never saw 

 greater execution. You will remember that my 

 gun was an old fowling-piece, and that the 

 bullets I loaded it with were conical, with 

 Jacobs's tube explosive shells inserted in the ends, 

 also that the bullets were too big, and I had to 

 reduce them with my knife. For Jacobs's shells 

 to explode they must strike a hard substance 

 precisely on the point. I have fired hundreds of 

 them out of the most finished rifles, and in cases 

 where they have not struck on the point, I have 

 seen the bullets and shells knocked into cocked 

 hats and all kinds of shapes, and no explosion. 

 You will therefore perceive that the explosion of this 

 shell was a perfect marvel. That the tiger should 

 have had the strength to maul me as he did, after 

 the terrible execution done by the explosive bullet, 

 will give you some idea of the extraordinary vitality 

 possessed by the'se animals. During my lay-up, an 

 account appeared in " The Englishman," a Calcutta 

 paper, of an Assam tea planter, who had shot 

 a tiger on the opposite side of a river, twenty feet 

 wide, clean through the heart. The tiger jumped the 

 river, killed the planter, and died on top of him. 



