1 86 Leaves from an Indian Jungle. 



r I - 



These young men had long and eagerly planned this 

 particular trip; and having, as they thought, arranged pre- 

 liminaries satisfactorily, after much trouble, they had set 

 out with not ill-founded anticipations of a roseate hue. 

 Reaching their shooting-ground at a very considerable 

 expenditure of their slender means, and not a little patience 

 by the way, they had, although not actual novices in 

 tiger shikar, gone through an immense amount of hard work 

 to no purpose ; which had finally resulted in the incapa- 

 citating of one of them by jungle fever. Although almost 

 all their available time (two months) had been spent in 

 working for tigers, they had only succeeded in shooting 

 one and that one by mere chance. On the other hand, 

 as regards less noble game, hard work had met with its 

 reward. That tigers were there is proved by the fact 

 that a week or two later, a local official a man of no 

 experience in shikar following almost in their footsteps, 

 had shot seven, while the total number of these animals 

 killed in that district during the same year amounted to 

 over twenty. 



Some of his experiences, angrily related by the dis- 

 appointed sportsman, were of an extremely diverting 

 nature, though in no wise unfamiliar to those acquainted 

 with Oriental subtleties. But, divested of their humourous 

 wrapping, these are pills at the swallowing of which the 

 Englishman makes a very wry face ; and at such pernicious 

 influences as they reveal, his gorge rises in indignation 

 and disgust. 



Accustomed to a mode of dealing at least fair and square, 

 we are peculiarly liable to be deceived by the easy hypo- 

 crisy that, generally speaking, comes so naturally to the 

 Eastern mind ; so, although the following matter is the 

 reflection of no novel experience, it may have its use in 



