Jungle By- Ways in India 



I had two baigahs (a local jungle tribe) with me, 

 and we made a tour of the surrounding patches of 

 forest and grass land, on the off-chance of seeing 

 a good sambhar or barasingha stag. We saw 

 several considerable herds of chitul and barasingha, 

 all with stags in them, but none with a head worthy 

 the expenditure of a cartridge. The sun was 

 dropping behind the nearest tree-covered hill-top 

 as we reached an open, billowy space of short coarse 

 grass. We were proceeding in Indian file, and had 

 got half across this when one of the natives touched 

 me on the arm and muttered ' bagh.' Now the 

 word ' bagh ' (tiger) is as often as not used by the 

 natives for a leopard and, not infrequently, for 

 any animal seen indistinctly, and which their 

 excited imagination is ever ready to consider 

 to be the animal they most dread to meet in the 

 forest. I consequently turned slowly and rather 

 casually to look in the direction the man pointed 

 to. Judge my amazement and excitement when 

 I saw, about a hundred paces away to my left, 

 a large tiger moving in a direction parallel to the 

 one we were taking, but going the opposite 

 way. Mechanically, I seized the heavy rifle which 

 I fortunately had with me, and cocked both 

 triggers. As I did so the thought flashed through 

 my mind that I could not fire at the beast. The 

 jungle I was in had been already reserved for tiger 

 by two other men who were to arrive at the 

 bungalow that evening, and thus the animal in 



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