116 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



left a few of the best trackers to follow up their trail with 

 the next beat, and went round to take up our places about a 

 mile further down, and close to my camp at Rorighat. The 

 same process was repeated here, and this time with much 

 shouting and hammering of drums, as a tiget was usually 

 somewhere in this part of the valley, and his tracks had been 

 seen in the morning. I did not get a shot on this occasion. 

 One of the Gond Thakurs shot another sambar ; and my 

 wounded stag was found and killed with their axes by the 

 G6nds. The wounded bull was in the beat, and broke near 

 one of the Thakiir's retainers, who was too astonished to fire. 

 The rest of the bison, or another herd, broke through the side 

 of the beat, and plunged down a very steep and rocky de- 

 scent, which the people said they had never attempted but 

 once before, when one of them had broken a leg. Certainly I 

 should not have thought that any animal so large as a bison 

 could go down that place and live. 



Nothing had been seen of the tiger, and had I known him 

 as well as I afterwards did, I would not have been surprised. 

 I knew that tiger intimately for many months after this, and 

 yet I never once saw him. He was a very large animal in- 

 deed, but entirely a jungle tiger, that is, preying solely on 

 wild animals, and keeping during the day to the most inac- 

 cessible ravines and thickets. He frequented the bison ground 

 round Dhupgarh, and hung on the traces of the herds, ap- 

 parently with an eye to the young beeves. I never came 

 across evidence of his killing any of them, though I once saw 

 a place on the plateau where the whole night long he had 

 evidently baited an unfortunate cow with a calf. Within a 

 space of some twenty yards in diameter the grass had been 

 closely trampled down and paddled into the moist ground by 

 their feet, the footprints of the calf being in the centre, while 



