INDIAN SHOOTING 201 



angles to the centre, which still kept steadily advancing. Suddenly, 

 altliough apparently no news had been passed up, a sort of electric 

 current seemed to run through the line ; then bugles sounded right 

 and left, and the movement became hurried. The Maharajah 

 (Bir Shumshir of Nepal) and I then stopped to mount our howdah 

 elephants (as we had hitherto been riding pads), and, advancing on 

 them, found ourselves outside a ready-formed ring of elephants, 

 some two hundred yards in diameter, encircling a lovely glade in 

 the forest, damp and cool, with tall green reeds and scattered trees. 

 A tiger had been viewed, and the question now was, whether he was 

 inside the ring or not. Orders were now given for the ring to close 

 ver>' slowly and steadily, till it had contracted to a circle of about a 

 hundred yards, and the elephants were in some places standing two 

 deep. A halt was now made to complete the formation ; gaps 

 had to be filled up here and there, and big tuskers sent round to 

 any weak points where a number of small elephants had got 

 together, to give them confidence in case of a charge. The Maha- 

 rajah and I then entered the ring, and took up a position on our 

 howdah elephants, between where we thought the tiger was lying 

 hid and the heaviest cover. I have seen several tigers break the 

 ring and escape for the time when this precaution has not been 

 observed. Three big tuskers, w^hich had accompanied us to rouse 

 the tiger, then began moving about very quietly, lifting up a 

 tangle of grass here, shaking a bush there ; for tigers in these rings 

 lie very close, the elephants invariably making a masterly retreat 

 immediately pending the result of each special inquiry. Suddenly, 

 not fifty paces from us, a lovely tigress with a glitter of gold on 

 her flanks appeared, standing listening and motionless. As we 

 had detected no movement she must have been crouching in the 

 short grass and risen to her feet. We usually took it in turn to 

 fire first, and as it was the Maharajah's shot, and our elephants 

 were standing side by side, I leant over my howdah and touched 

 his arm. He fired hurriedly, and with a whoop of anger the lady 

 answered the shot and sprang into a thick bed of high reeds. 

 Thinking she was hit, we went round and posted ourselves again 

 between the reeds and the line of elephants on the far side. We 

 had hardly settled ourselves when there was a deliberate rush, 

 beginning some thirty yards from us, and the charge came straight 

 and true. When within three yards of the tusks of the Maharajah's 

 elephant she met her fate, and rolled over and over like a rabbit, 

 almost between the lov/ered tusks of the elephant, with a bullet 



