TIGERLAND 



Shorn of its embroidery, his tale was to the effect that 

 late on the previous evening a buffalo belonging to his 

 father had been killed by a tiger and dragged a considerable 

 distance into some thick grass jungle which lay between 

 his village and the Government forest. 



The man excused himself for the delay in giving in- 

 formation on the grounds that he had waited till daylight 

 to make further inquiries, and had then discovered the 

 marks of the pugs, which from their size were apparently 

 those of a large tiger. 



As there appeared to be no reason for doubting the 

 man's story except as to the dimensions of the tiger and 

 the next day was a whole holiday, we decided to send 

 out the elephants next morning and beat for the beast. 

 Accordingly, giving our informant the usual " buk- 

 shish " to be supplemented later should his information 

 prove to be correct we confided him to the keeping of my 

 " shakiri," orderly, with strict injunctions to give him a 

 good feed and as much straw as he wanted for his bedding. 

 We then made our own arrangements for an early 

 start viz. at 5 a.m. the elephants, with the howdahs and 

 guns, being ordered to go earlier, as the place was distant, 

 and part of the way lay through the dense jungle. 



Shortly before the appointed time, two shivering 

 figures, well wrapped in ulsters, for the morning was 

 intensely cold, emerged from our respective tents, and, 

 making a hurried meal of tea, boiled eggs, and toast in 

 the verandah of the tent, mounted the dogcart which was 

 to take us the first five miles, the rest to be performed on 

 a pad elephant through the jungle. 



Having accomplished the first stage of our journey, we 

 were not sorry to exchange the dogcart for the elephant, 

 as the so-called driving road proved merely a tracing, the 

 centre being left as nature had created it plus several 

 deep holes, where trees removed by the workmen had 

 originally existed. But with the chance of a tiger at the 

 end of it, we soon forgot the discomfort we had endured. 



Shortly after mounting the elephant we entered some 

 long grass jungle, which at times was considerably above 

 our heads, and in places the only way we could proceed 

 at all was in the tracks made by wild elephants, which 

 208 



