218 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA. 



for some other game than sambar, and these have sometimes 

 proved memorable occasions. 



In 1861, in the Jubbulptir district, I was beating a wooded 

 hill side for sambar as the shades of evening were drawing 

 on, and the beaters had nearly reached the end of the drive 

 when I suddenly saw them swarming up trees, and the shout 

 reached me of " Two tigers are afoot ! " I was then trying 

 for the first time a rifle made on Jacob's principle for explo- 

 sive shells, and congratulated myself on having so good an 

 opportunity for testing it. Anxiously I waited behind my 

 little green bush, the beaters creating a din enough to 

 deafen a dozen tigers, till at last I saw a striped form glide 

 across an open spot in front, and advancing in my direction. 

 With finger on the trigger I was awaiting his appearance 

 at the next break in the low jungle, when suddenly I heard 

 the bushes crashing on my left, and a large tiger bounded 

 into the jungle pathway on which I was standing, and 

 cantered towards my position. Wheeling round, I delivered 

 the right barrel of the Jacob in his left shoulder, on receiving 

 which he rolled over like a rabbit. At the moment I fired 

 my eye caught a glimpse of the other tiger close by, in the 

 direction I had first seen him ; so, seeing the first disposed of, 

 I again fronted, and, with a steady aim, gave No. 2 the left 

 barrel through the neck. As luck would have it, the spine was 

 broken, and he dropped on the spot. All this occupied but a 

 few seconds, being as quick a right and left as ever I fired. 

 On turning my attention again to the first tiger, I was just 

 in time to see him reach the thick jungle some twenty paces 

 off, and, before I could seize another gun, he had disappeared. 

 I had time to perceive, however, that his right hind leg was 

 broken in the body ; the shell must, therefore, as he was hit 

 in the left shoulder, have traversed his body from stem to 



