SAD RECORDS 83 



two ; in three or four hours he was dead. The tiger 

 died as he struck him. In the same yard there was 

 another case of a death from a tiger a poor fellow 

 called Willoughby and, if I mistake not, a Captain 

 Hughes killed by an elephant. About the last, I am 

 not sure. At Tarikere, where I met the adventure 

 related in my letter to Constance, there were the graves 

 of three English officers, encircled by a low wall and 

 shaded by three gnarled old trees. Two were killed 

 by tigers, and one had committed suicide driven to it, 

 I suppose, by the loneliness of the place. So feverish 

 and unhealthy, no one would live there. Nothing is so 

 saddening as to see the monument of a once-loved son or 

 brother in happy little England, rearing its pallid head 

 in the midst of wild, unheard-of jungles, with no one to 

 look on it with anything but the idle eye of curiosity. 



If there was a tinge of * blue devils ' about my 

 letter when after that man-eating tiger, you now see 

 the cause. I did not care for you to see it before, but 

 if hid any longer, it would stand like an island alone in 

 a vast sea, marking the first striking affair in my life 

 that you don't know of. When you feel that you will 

 know everything ; I hope it lessens the anxiety I fear 

 you must feel now and then. Don't be afraid of tigers 

 in future. I know now I'm not afraid of them, and 

 others know it, which, to be honest, is a satisfaction. 

 But it now is, in my eyes, a matter of foolish risk to 

 stand before a tiger, and I never will do it again if I 

 can help it. You have my promise, so I know you 

 will feel quite light about the heart again. Tiger- 

 shooting from elephants or from trees is quite safe, 

 especially when Hancock's sad warning of going near 

 an apparently dead one is held to view. In my present 

 expedition I expect deer -stalking, which is, after all, 

 my favourite sport (bar the glorious bison). It is so 



G 



