276 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



elephant. So slowly ! He actually hadn't steam left in him 

 to get up a proper charge when he tried. A right and left 

 stopped him at once, and another ball in the ear settled him ; 

 and then Futteh went up and kicked him, and it was all over. 

 He was a very large tiger, measuring ten feet one inch in length 

 as he lay, and was a perfect mountain of fat, the fat of a thou- 

 sand kine, as the cowherds lugubriously remarked when they 

 came up. He had a perfect skin, clear red and white, with the 

 fine double stripes and W mark on the head, and long whiskers, 

 which add so greatly to the beauty of a tiger trophy. The 

 whole of the pads of his feet were blistered off on the hot 

 rocks he had been traversing, and his tongue was swollen and 

 blue. We were nearly dead ourselves, and went down to the 

 water he had been making for, while a messenger went to the 

 village for more men, the dozen lusty cattle-herds and my 

 own men together being totally unable to put him on the pad- 

 elephant to carry home. An ordinary tiger will weigh about 

 four hundred and fifty or five hundred pounds, but this beef- 

 fed monster must have touched seven hundred pounds at least ; 

 and a tiger, from his length and suppleness, is a very awk- 

 ward object to lift off the ground. 



I have said that ten feet one inch is the length of an un- 

 usually large tiger. The average length from nose to tip of 

 tail is only nine feet six inches for a full-grown male, and for a 

 tigress about eight feet four inches. The experience of all sports- 

 men I have met with, whose accuracy I can rely on, is the same ; 

 and it will certainly be found, when much greater measure- 

 ments than this are recorded, that they have either been taken 

 from stretched skins or else in a very careless fashion. The skin 

 of a ten-feet tiger will easily stretch to thirteen or fourteen 

 feet, if required ; and if natives are allowed to use the tape they 

 are certain to throw in a foot or two " to please master." Master 



