202 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



through the head, and never moved again. The Maharajah's 

 elephant, usually impassive and unhysterical, had actually been so 

 far shaken by the decided nature of the charge that he had moved 

 and forced his rider to sit down just at the critical moment. The 

 noise of the charge and the shot roused up her mate, a heavy, long 

 tiger, who gave me a chance as he walked quietly between two 

 patches of cover about sixty yards off, and I dropped him with an 

 Express bullet through the shoulder. Now began a performance 

 that I never like, and for which the only excuse is the fear — a very 

 real one — that if the howdah elephants get mauled they no longer 

 remain absolutely staunch and reliable. The game is, that when a j' 

 tiger is wounded in thick cover, the big tuskers are sent in to move |^ 

 him. It is often a very funny sight as the tiger goes for them and 

 they find pressing business on the other side of the ring, whilst 

 the careful way they hunt for him or break down a tree to fall 

 near him and stir him, and then clear out, is quite a study. The 

 mischief is that they are often caught, and on this occasion three ! i 

 of them were caught by the tiger, one after the other. The tiger ' [ 

 once was swinging under a big tusker's head and getting his hind j 

 leg up ; for a moment we thought he would pull the elephant down, '" 

 but the latter managed to shake him off. The Maharajah and I i 

 then went in and killed the tiger before he had time to get in a fair j 

 charge at us. j 



On some occasions we have had as many as three, four, or even||| 

 five tigers in one ring, and the excitement is of course proportionate. ■ ; 

 Then, though a purist would object that the whole thing is not real 

 sport, it is most interesting from beginning to end : the careful | 

 search for the tiger, always an excitement in itself, the ringing, the | 

 doubt whether you have him inside or not, his break, perhaps, \ 

 before or after the ring is formed, and the mad rush of shouting ] 

 mahouts and crashing elephants to head him and surround him \ 

 again ; the lesser life that goes whirling up overhead when the \ 

 tuskers search the ground — peacock, jungle-fowl, partridge — or the \ 

 blundering gallop round the ring of a frightened boar, the rush of I 

 terrified hog-deer or chital ; and perhaps, at last, a circus perform- \ 

 ance on the part of the tiger himself, who will gallop round the ^i 

 ring, his tail whirling like that of an angry cat, trying the circle 1 

 here and there with a hoarse, grunting charge, which is met by a ! 

 volley of abuse and cudgels flung by the mahouts, and by shrill \ 

 trumpetings on the part of the elephants, backing with fright. All J 

 this tends to make a Nepalese tiger ring an interesting and an i 



