A BELGAUM TIGER 51 



big teeth were broken too. Curiously enough, he 

 lay within a few yards of the dead buffalo he had 

 killed and dragged to that spot. Very little of it 

 had been eaten, but its body was one living, crawling 

 mass of rather long-legged, red spiders that were 

 eating it, and that covered it an inch or two in 

 depth. 



The coolies cut down poles, which they tied 

 together, to carry the tiger back to camp, and all 

 these preparations took some time. As it was 

 nearly dark I rode back to camp and sent out a 

 lantern. About ten o'clock the tiger was brought 

 in on his stretcher by ten or twelve men amid great 

 shouting and yelling, while the remainder carried 

 flaming torches which they waved round him. A 

 goat had to be given to the village to be sacrificed to 

 Devi. 



When the tiger was skinned in the morning we 

 found an old bullet wound below the elbow, quite 

 healed up and healthy, which probably accounted 

 for his looking up into all the trees the moment he 

 arrived at the clearing. 



The first shot had hit him slightly above the eye ; 

 and it seemed to me amazing that the blow did not 

 even stun him and that he was able to canter back. 



In the hot weather, another time, in the Dharwar 

 districts, I spent some time trying for a tiger. He 

 had killed a village cow and news had come in too 

 late for a beat, as the place was a good many miles 

 away. Mahomed, the keen forest guard, had put 

 up a machan ready, and wanted me to sit up all 

 night, which was a very hopeless thing to do for 



