FAILURES 223 



starry silence of the Indian jungle at night, broken 

 only occasionally by the cry of peafowl or deer or 

 night birds. Then I whistled for the men, then I 

 yelled which broke the beautiful silence unpleasantly 

 but could not make them hear, so I lay down in 

 the machan to sleep. I was soon awakened after 

 all this noise too by the gentle rustle of a leaf, then 

 the crackling of bones, and I suppose the tiger was 

 there, but the moon was setting and some clouds 

 which had no business to be there at all at that time 

 of the year blew over and obscured what little 

 moon there was, so there was no tiger for me that 

 night, as he was away before dawn. 



Then a much sadder thing happened : a very fine 

 tiger came out one evening, to my amazement, in 

 daylight, before the sun had set, a thing I had never 

 seen before and probably never shall again, and I 

 was not able to get a shot ! That was most tantaliz- 

 ing. The place was quite lonely, far away in the 

 jungle, and the bullock that had been killed was 

 lying partly covered and hidden by bushes. There 

 was a very convenient tree near it for the machan, 

 and forest in front and on both sides of it, but behind 

 was a wide open grass glade. We were rather late 

 and hurried in putting up the machan, but I com- 

 plained that the tree was very open behind me as 

 there were no branches there and no leaves to hide 

 me, so that from the rear I was very much exposed 

 to the view of any animal coming from the open bit 

 of grassland. The shikari said that the tiger was 

 sure to come by way of the jungle in front, looked 

 rather scornful at my poor ignorance and asked 



