A DARING RAID. 301 



eater's advance, and a tiger had never hitherto been heard of near the 

 village. This attack was therefore the more unlocked for and terrifying 

 to the villagers. 



Immediately breakfast was over and an elephant ready I started and 

 soon reached Bussavanpoor. The attack had been most daring. At one 

 end of the single street of the village stood a shady tree, round the base 

 of which a raised terrace of stones and earth had been built as a public 

 seat ; within ten yards of this tree the houses began. From the marks 

 we saw that the tigress had crouched upon this raised terrace, from which 

 she commanded a view of the street. The nearest house on one side was 

 occupied by an old woman, the one opposite by her married daughter. 

 The old woman, it appeared, sometimes slept in her own house, sometimes 

 at her daughter's. The night before she had been going to her daugh- 

 ter's, and as she crossed the street, only a few feet wide, the tigress with 

 one silent bound seized and carried her off. No one heard any noise, and 

 the poor old creature was not missed till morning. 



When I arrived the son - in - law came forward, and with the other 

 villagers gave an account of the mishap. The son-in-law's grief was really 

 painful to witness ; and when he told me how all his efforts to find any trace 

 of his mother-in-law had been unsuccessful, he gave way to the most poig- 

 nant outbursts. Now, knowing pretty well how little store is placed upon 

 an old woman in India, I could not but regard this display of feeling by the 

 fat young son-in-law as rather strange. A mother-in-law is not usually so 

 highly esteemed (amongst natives) that her loss is deemed an irreparable 

 calamity ; and when I further noted that the afflicted youth could only give 

 a shaky account of his exertions in looking for the body, I thought some- 

 thing was wrong, and had him taken along with us. 



The tigress had gone towards the river ; and though cattle and people 

 had been over the fields, and it was now afternoon, the sun hot, and a strong 

 wind blowing clouds of dust about, the trackers carried on the trail very 

 cleverly, and pointed out that several footmarks had followed it before us, 

 for which the prostrated son-in-law found some difficulty in accounting. 

 After passing through a field of standing rice in which tlie broad trail was 

 very distinct, and where in the soft mud we got a fair impression of the 

 tigress's pugs, and through some bushes where strips of the woman's blue 

 cotton cloth were hanging, we came to a cocoa-nut garden near the river, 

 and here, amongst some aloe-bushes, we missed the drag. There w^as a 

 place which looked as if the tigress had lain down, probably to eat, as there 

 were marks of blood ; but there were no remains, and her trail continued 

 across the river, whither we followed. 



