72 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



man-eater. I have promised him a rifle if I get him 

 while he is with me. His answer was : " Sahib, I 

 did not come to preserve my life, but to lose it in 

 your service ; such were the commands of his 

 Highness, the Rajah, and to obey him was I born." 

 I hope he will prove as good as his word ; I expect 

 he will be well tried ! 



Brooke here adds a note "A greater set of impostors 

 never chewed rice or betel nut." For many days and 

 nights Brooke watched for the man-eater at likely 

 places, and several times tracked him in the jungle 

 but without success. At last, however, he was rewarded 

 by coming face to face with the savage brute, and would 

 no doubt have finished his bloodthirsty career but for 

 the untoward accident mentioned in the following letter 

 to his sister, written from the Neilgherry Hills some 

 time after : 



" OOTACAMUND, NEILGHERRY HlLLS, 



ist February 1863. 



First of all where am I ? In no other place than 

 the charming * Blue Mountains ' (or Neilgherry Hills), 

 teeming with English people ; so much so that to- 

 morrow I start off again to the wild forest glades, with 

 two tents which constitute a capital substitute for old 

 C. B. 1 (any way for the present), to stalk the grand stag 

 sambur from ' early morn to dewy eve.' How you 

 would open those dear little eyes of yours could you 

 but picture to yourself some of the wild exciting scenes 

 your respectable old brother Vic has been playing first 

 fiddle to lately. I must try and give you an idea. 

 I'll begin with my escape from a tiger ; I have not 

 mentioned it before, for fear of making all you dear, 

 anxious ( old folks at home ' uneasy, but now I write 

 1 Colebrooke. 



