HISTORY OF THE TIGER. . 63 



ran the spot where he lay; and as I came up, I saw him, 

 through an aperture, rising to attempt a charge. My ma- 

 hout had just before, in the heat of the chase, dropped his 

 ankors or goad, which I had refused to allow him to recover ; 

 and the elephant, being notoriously savage, and farther 

 irritated by the goading he had undergone, became conse- 

 quently unmanageable ; he appeared to see the tiger as soon 

 as myself, and I had only time to fire one shot, when he 

 suddenly rushed with the greatest fury into the thicket, and 

 falling upon his knees, nailed the tiger with his tusks to the 

 ground. Such was the violence of the shock, that my ser- 

 vant, who sat behind, was thrown out, and one of my guns 

 went overboard. The strugles of my elephant to crush his 

 still resisting foe, who had fixed one paw on his eye, were 

 so energetic, that I was obliged to hold on with all my 

 strength, to keep myself in the houdah. The second bar- 

 rel, too, of the gun which I still retained in my hand, went 

 off in the scuffle, the ball passing close to the mahout's ear, 

 whose situation, poor fellow, was anything but enviable. 

 As soon as my elephant was prevailed upon to leave the kill- 

 ing part of the business to the sportsmen, they gave the 

 roughly used tiger the coup dc grace. It was a very fine 

 female, with the most beautiful skin I ever saw." 



We shall only give another sketch of a tiger hunt : our 

 last is told by a gentleman, this one shall be from the pen 

 of a lady, herself the heroine of the chase, and will be curi- 

 ous, as we believe it is the only instance upon record. 



"We had elephants, guns, balls, and all other necessa- 

 ries prepared, and about seven in the morning we set off. 

 The soil was exactly like that we had gone over last night; 

 our course lay N. W. The jungle was generally composer! 

 oP'cofindu bushes, which were stunty and thin, and looked 

 like ragged thorn bushes ; nothing could be more desolate 

 in appearance ; it seemed as if we had got to the farthest 

 limits of cultivation, or the haunts o( nan. At times the 



