294 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



of the tormentors, and in picking out the fangs they had left 

 behind. 



A few days of a lazy existence in this microcosm of a 

 grove passed not unpleasantly after a spell of hard work 

 in the pitiless hot blasts outside ; but when the Lalla brought 

 in news of families of tigers waiting to be hunted in the 

 surrounding river-beds I began to chafe ; and when I heard 

 from a neighbouring police post that the man-eater had again 

 appeared, and had killed a man and a boy on the high road 

 about ten miles from my camp, I could stand it no longer. I 

 had been douching my leg with cold water, but now resorted 

 to stronger measures, giving it a coating of James's horse- 

 blister, which caused of course severe pain for a few days, 

 but at the end of them resulted, to my great delight, in a 

 complete and permanent cure. In the meantime, while I was 

 still raw and sore, I was regaled with stories of the man-eater 

 of his fearful size and appearance, with belly pendent to the 

 ground, and white moon on the top of his forehead ; his pork- 

 butcher-like method of detaining a party of travellers while 

 he rolled himself in the sand, and at last came up and in- 

 spected them all round, selecting the fattest; his power of 

 transforming himself into an innocent-looking woodcutter, 

 and calling or whistling through the woods till an unsus- 

 pecting victim approached ; how the spirits of all his victims 

 rode with him on his head, warning him of every danger, and 

 guiding him to the fatal ambush where a traveller would 

 shortly pass. All the best shikaris of the country-side were 

 collected in my camp ; and the landholders and many of the 

 people besieged my tent morning and evening. The infant of 

 a woman who had been carried away while drawing water 

 at a well was brought and held up before me ; and every offer 

 of assistance in destroying the monster was made. No useful 



