THE HIGHER NARBADa. 321 



women and children who ventured out of the village. He 

 was a panther of the largest size, and had been wounded by a 

 shikari from a tree, the ball passing through his external ear 

 and one of his paws, and rendering him incapable of killing 

 game. I was a week hunting him, as he was very careful not 

 to show himself when pursued ; and at last I shot him in a 

 cowhouse into which he had ventured, and killed several head 

 of cattle, before the people had courage to shut the door. 



When a panther takes to man-eating, he is a far more 

 terrible scourge than a tiger. In 1858 a man-killing panther 

 devastated the northern part of the Seoni district, killing 

 (incredible as it may seem) nearly a hundred persons before 

 he was shot by a shikari. He never ate the bodies, but 

 merely lapped the blood from the throat ; and his plan was 

 either to steal into a house at night, and strangle some sleeper 

 on his bed, stifling all outcry with his deadly grip, or to climb 

 into the high platforms from which watchers guard their fields 

 from deer, and drag out his victim from there. He was not 

 to be baulked of his prey ; and when driven off from one end 

 of a village, would hurry round to the opposite side and secure 

 another in the confusion. A few moments completed his 

 deadly work, and such was the devilish cunning he joined to 

 this extraordinary boldness that all attempts to find and shoot 

 him were for many months unsuccessful. European sports- 

 men who went out,, after hunting him in vain all day, would 

 find his tracks close to the door of their tent in the morning. 

 When, a few years later, I passed through the scene of his 

 chief depredations (Dhiima), a curious myth had grown round 

 the history of this panther. A man and his wife were travel- 

 ling back to their home from a pilgrimage to Benares, when 

 they met on the road a panther. The woman was terrified ; 

 but the man said, " Fear not, I possess a charm by which I 



