TIGERS, LEOPARDS, AND BEARS 275 



will, I fear, appear exceedingly tame, but of the truth 

 of which I can vouch. A young officer at a station 

 where I once was had a pet leopard. It was very 

 gentle still ; when it got big it was thought more 

 prudent to have it kept chained. The chain was a 

 strong one, but, nevertheless, in a few days the leopard 

 broke it, wandered about, killed a few fowls, and was 

 then recovered and brought home and secured by a 

 chain still stronger. This too he presently broke, and, 

 if I remember right, a third one also. How he did 

 so was a mystery. It was at length solved. It was 

 not the result of any desire of the leopard to escape, 

 but merely the consequence of his incessant activity. 

 Except when eating or sleeping, he was for ever pacing 

 round and round and backwards and forwards. The 

 chain by these movements got at length knotted and 

 twisted into the rigidity of a bar, and at some moment 

 snapped with the leverage of the leopard's strength and 

 weight pressing against its further end. 



The tigers and leopards are the natural inhabitants 

 of the Doon and its forests ; the bears may be re- 

 garded rather as visitors or immigrants, for their proper 

 home is the Himalaya. They are small, that is, for 

 bears. In size they do not very much exceed a well- 

 grown English sheep, and their fur, though very long, 

 is not particularly thick. It is black in colour, with 

 generally a patch of white on the chest. 



Notwithstanding, however, their small size, the bears 

 in the Himalaya are far more dreaded than even the 

 tigers. I once asked a villager the reason. He thus 

 explained it. The tiger, he said, if he attacks a man, 



