HOW I KILLED THE TIGER. IQ 



confinement. This is about the prettiest station 

 in India, and on this occasion, as we slowly pro- 

 ceeded up avenue after avenue, it appeared to me 

 extremely charming. The room prepared for me 

 was about thirty feet by twenty, with three large 

 windows down to the ground, looking on to a 

 large garden full of magnificent flowers. But 

 even under these happier conditions I did not im- 

 prove. One night soon after my arrival, when 

 I was about at my very worst, I awoke in in- 

 tense pain. I felt as if all my wounds and bed- 

 sores were being punctured with red-hot needles. 

 I called out to my servant, asking him to bring 

 a light to see what was up. He lifted up the 

 mosquito curtains and found the bed swarming 

 with little red ants of a most rapacious kind 

 (Ants : see Appendix). He set to work vigorously 

 to brush them out, when the candle came in 

 contact with the curtains, and in a second they 

 were in a blaze (Plate 20). Fortunately my 

 servant was equal to the occasion, he frantically 

 tore them down, and so preserved me from being 

 considerably burned. It seemed as if fate was 

 not yet tired of persecuting me. This peril of 

 death by fire was rather a trial coming on top of 

 my other sufferings. To guard against another 

 attack from the red ants I had the legs of the 

 bedstead placed in brass bowls of water. That 



