CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 115 



sport from a howdah affords most of the excite- 

 ment, with very little of the risk, the worst that 

 may happen (and it is quite bad enough) being 

 that the elephant should take fright and 

 stampede into the jungle, brushing its occu- 

 pant off its back and tumbling him on the 

 ground, with an infuriated tiger somewhere 

 handy. This, however, is of fortunately rare 

 occurrence. It is remarkable how easily two or 

 three men on an elephant seem time after time 

 to escape the notice of tigers and other wild 

 animals on the ground. This, no doubt, is 

 partly due to the tiger's failure to look for 

 danger from overhead, an omission already 

 alluded to, but it is also, we may assume, the 

 result of his mistaking a single elephant for a 

 wild one, and therefore taking very little notice 

 of it. When a number of elephants are used in 

 beating up tigers, the latter are fully aware of 

 the danger that threatens them, but a single 

 one does not seem to excite their suspicion 

 until the first shot is fired. 



Though a terrible fellow to come across 

 at close quarters when wounded, the tiger 

 is, under ordinary circumstances, an arrant 

 coward. Give him a chance to slink away and 

 he will do so. (Do not give a lion the same 

 chance, for, though he does not always do 

 so, he is quite likely to slink in your direc- 

 tion, which is a very different matter.) Unless 



