A TIGER-DRIVE. 223 



of a tiger. A tiger will overawe and make conscious 

 of his inferiority a man who would be unaffected by 

 the bulk of an elephant. The feeling is, however, 

 elusive of description, and I can perhaps best explain 

 it in the words of a most charming French gentleman 

 (now dead, alas ! ) who was once manager of a great 

 tin-mining company in Perak. I well remember his 

 coming into the Tapah messroom where the Europeans 

 of the district used in those days to take their meals. 

 We had just finished lunch when he entered in a state 

 of tremendous excitement. Walking alone and un- 

 armed along an unfrequented bridle-path through the 

 forest, he had walked almost on to a tiger. He gave 

 us a most vivid narrative of the encounter : how the 

 tiger had been lying down concealed in some long 

 lalang grass beside the path ; how he was within ten 

 yards of it before he saw it; how then it rose and 

 looked at him ; how it yawned at him ; how it then 

 walked slowly across the path in front of him, and 

 then stopped and looked at him, again yawning ; and 

 how it then deliberately walked away into the forest, 

 whose depths finally hid it from view. I cannot 

 attempt to imitate the beautiful and forcible diction 

 that Monsieur C. had at his command, for the plain 

 facts that I have thrown into a single sentence 

 received from the narrator a majesty of style and 

 a wealth of colouring and detail that cannot be re- 

 produced on paper. 



Some one asked him whether it was a big tiger. 

 It is his answer that illustrates my meaning. 



" Well, Messieurs, I cannot say if he is a big tiger. 

 My eyes see that he is big ; but I cannot say how big 



