THE TIGEE. 291 



when they arrived. On one occasion I reached their ground 

 just as their last camel was moving off to a new camp. They 

 had stayed here a week trying in vain to extort help in finding 

 a couple of tigers whose tracks they had seen. The tigers 

 were all the time within half a mile of their tents ; and before 

 ten o'clock that day I had them both padded. During 

 whole month I believe they only succeeded in getting one 

 tiger, and that by potting it from a tree at night. Some 

 years afterwards, when I shot the same country under much 

 more favourable circumstances, the number of tigers had 

 greatly diminished, owing to the high rewards and the steady 

 attentions of the forest officers, and my bag was then just the 

 same as in 1862. Five or six tigers may, in fact, be considered 

 a very fair bag for one gun in a month's shooting, even in the 

 best parts of the Central Provinces ; but two or three guns, 

 with a proportionate force of elephants, should of course do 

 much better. 



I spent nearly a week of this time in the destruction of a 

 famous man-eater, which had completely closed several roads, 

 and was estimated to have devoured over a hundred human 

 beings. One of these roads was the main outlet from the 

 Betul teak forests towards the railway then under construc- 

 tion in the Narbada* valley ; and the work of the sleeper-con- 

 tractors was completely at a standstill owing to the ravages of 

 this brute. He occupied regularly a large triangle of country 

 between the rivers Moran and Ganjal ; occasionally making a 

 tour of destruction much further to the east and west ; and 

 striking terror into a breadth of not less than thirty to forty 

 miles. It was therefore supposed that the devastation was 

 caused by more than one animal ; and we thought we had 

 disposed of one of these early in April, when we killed a very 

 cunning old tiger of evil repute after several days' severe 



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