ii8 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



sufficiently close quarters to allow of these 

 hypnotic attempts, yet one or two have been 

 brought to my notice. A case of the sort, re- 

 ported in The Field, actually occurred as 

 recently as 1910. A sportsman was out with 

 his shikari (native gillie) in the Himalaya, and 

 the man was walking about ten paces ahead, 

 carrying his master's "450 rifle. They were 

 proceeding slowly through a thick forest of 

 cedars when, of a sudden and without warning, 

 the man stopped dead. The Englishman 

 stopped also, and observed that the man, 

 without turning his head, was beckoning him 

 and holding out the rifle. On going up to the 

 shikari, he saw a great panther sprawling on 

 a rock some thirty feet below them. The 

 panther was gazing intently at the native, who 

 never once took his eyes off it, and the animal 

 certainly seemed either unable or unwilling to 

 move. The suspense seemed to last for several 

 minutes, but was in reality a matter only of 

 seconds, though time enough to enable the 

 sportsman to slip in his cartridges, take careful 

 aim and shoot the panther dead, with a bullet 

 between the shoulders. He did not feel it a 

 particularly creditable achievement to shoot an 

 animal apparently mesmerised, but the panther 

 in question had achieved an unenviable noto- 

 riety in the district as a cattle-thief, so it was 

 better dead than alive. What he puzzled over 



