THE TIGEK. 263 



but fields of short green wheat for many miles round about 

 this place ; and the only reason we could discover for so 

 singular an appearance of a tiger among the habitations of 

 man was that he had received a slight wound a few days 

 before. 



But it is not until the greater part of the grass has been 

 burnt in the jungles, and a hot sun has contracted the supply 

 of water to the neighbourhood of the great rivers, that regular 

 tiger hunting can be commenced with a fair prospect of success. 

 At this season, having discovered a tract where tigers are 

 reported, a good central place should be selected for a camp, 

 in the deep shade of some mango grove near a village, or 

 under the still more grateful canopy of some spreading banyan 

 tree. The graciousness of nature in furnishing such plentiful 

 shade at this arid season cannot but be admired. It is just 

 at the time when all nature begins to quiver in the fierce sun 

 and burning blasts of April that the banyan and peepul figs, 

 and the ever present mango, begin to throw out a fresh crop 

 of leaves, those of the first tree being then moreover charged 

 with a thick milky juice that forms an impenetrable non-con- 

 ductor to the sun's rays. 



Kiding up to his camp, pitched in the cool shadowy depths 

 of some grove like this, the sportsman will probably find 

 assembled the village headman, with a small train of culti- 

 vators and cowherds, waiting to receive him with some simple 

 offering a pot of milk, or a bunch of plantains from his 

 garden. If he is welcome, tales will not be wanting of the 

 neighbouring tigers how Earn Singh's cow was taken out of 

 the herd a few days before, or Bhyron the village watch, going 

 on an errand, went down for a drink to the river, and there 

 came on a tigress with her cubs bathing by its brink. That 

 youth himself will chime in, and graphically describe how he 



