296 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



That cruel blade was thrust again and again, and in 

 five minutes he turned over dead, and would doubt- 

 less have sunk, but a rope was quickly attached to one 

 leg and he was towed into shallow water and there left, 

 while we made up leeway by energetic paddling as if for 

 dear life. We rapidly came up with the second animal, 

 who was then within 100 yards of dry land, which 

 reached, it would have escaped ; but it had no chance ; 

 it was helpless, so was soon defunct. Having secured 

 the rhinoceros, a fresh spear was now chosen, and we 

 continued our course. Several more deer were now 

 killed. The horns of some of the stags were particu- 

 larly good, the velvet having only lately peeled off. 

 Soon after we got into a series of shallows, and our 

 boat got aground every few minutes, when the only 

 real danger occurs, for no animal, however vast its 

 strength or ferocious its nature, has a chance of doing 

 mischief when in deep water, but in shallows it often 

 turns to bay, and natives not infrequently have then 

 been killed. We had gone as far into the Terai as 

 the inundations allowed, and were returning by a 

 circuitous route, still skirting every islet we could 

 see, when at last a tiger was started. I full- cocked 

 my rifle, for if wounded and we went aground, the 

 animal I knew would charge. The old man speared 

 it, the tiger gave a roar and felt ground at the same 

 moment ; in an instant he turned upon us ; fortu- 

 nately it was still pretty deep, so our boat was 

 quickly backed. The veteran now made a vicious 

 thrust, broke his spear and went overboard head over 

 heels, but dived under the boat, and coming up on 

 the other side scrambled in, and was back in his place 

 in a minute with his " dhaw" in his hand. I was on 



