Jungle By- Ways in India 



that B has begun to close slowly up, and 



as the line nearly reaches me I advance slowly, in 

 order to keep slightly ahead of it. We are now 

 acting as stops as well as rifles. 



Not a sign has been seen or heard of the tiger. 

 Can he have slipped out ? Suddenly, shouts and 

 execrations from the middle of the line. My 

 mahout whispers that the tiger had been viewed 

 attempting to sneak back through a clump of tall 

 grass between two of the beating elephants. 

 Curses freely bestowed upon him by the mahouts, 

 and clods of earth and other missiles flung in his 

 direction cause him to change his mind, and he 

 turns and slinks forward. 



A cur apparently ! 



Again we move forward, and as we do so I 

 notice coming up on the road behind B - the 

 pad-elephant which carried the lunch-baskets and 

 boxes, with three gaudy, gold-bedizened khits in 

 snowy pagris seated upon them. 



We advanced slowly, and now the howdah in 

 front of me commences to move forward, and the 

 beating line is almost parallel. So narrow are the 

 forest strip and grass to the far side of it becoming, 

 that already the beating elephants are nearly 

 touching each other in the line. 



We reach a very tall and thick clump of grass 

 standing on the edge of the forest and road, and 

 I pushed on so as to be able to see the far side of it. 

 As the beating elephants came through it, to my 



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