REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE OF A -303 



was a loud " hough, hough," evidently caused by the 



animal seeing H 's howdah, and then a quick rush back, 



and the next moment I heard him coming crashing down 

 through the jungle towards where I stood. He suddenly 

 turned to the left, and coming out of the cover, trotted 

 along the edge of it, directly on to my position. The next 

 minute he caught sight of me, and, seeing that he was 

 evidently cut off on this side too, with a roar of rage charged 

 furiously down on me. I waited till he was about twenty 

 yards off, then, taking advantage of a dip in the ground, 

 took him as he was rising, and fired at his chest. He fell 

 to the shot, and while trying to recover himself I fired 

 again. He then began a series of acrobatic feats such as 

 I had never before witnessed in a wounded animal. He 

 first reared straight on end, then turned a complete somer- 

 sault, then appeared to jump with all four feet off the 

 ground, and finally rolled over on his side, righted himself, 

 and began coming towards me, half crawling and half 

 jumping. All this time I had kept on pumping in cartridges 

 and firing as quickly as I could, for I was mounted on what 

 is known as a fighting elephant, and, standing as we were 

 on the brink of a bank with a 10 feet drop into the river, I 

 felt if the tiger reached the elephant it would be a serious 

 matter, but fortunately he paused for a moment, enabling 

 me to place my shot. I accordingly gave him one through 

 the head, which appeared to kill him instantaneously, for 

 he rolled over on to his side, and never moved again. 



I jumped off with the tape, and found him to be 9 feet 

 7 inches and a splendid specimen of a very massive tiger in 

 the prime of life ; he had a short tail, or would probably 

 have measured some two inches longer. Turning him over 

 carefully I found he had five bullet holes in him, one in each 

 side of the chest, one in the body far back, one in the right 

 foreleg, and the last through the head. Examining the 

 magazine of my rifle, I discovered I had fired seven shots 

 in all, so had evidently missed twice, which was better 

 than I expected, considering that the tiger was never quiet 

 for a moment after receiving the second shot, and the 

 elephant doing his utmost to get at him all the time, and 

 so unsteady in consequence that quick and accurate 

 shooting was anything but an easy matter. However, here 



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