THE HIGHER NABBADA. 329 



tossing antlers. There was no tiger evidently in the beat. 

 Tjx: thakurs long matchlock had already been the death of a 

 buck, and he was painfully reloading its long tube from his 

 primitive charging implements. I had a couple of rifles, 

 single and double, and it was the work of as many seconds 

 only to fire the three barrels, killing two and wounding 

 another. There were no breech-loaders in those days ; but I 

 had time to reload the double while the stream of deer poured 

 past, and secure two more bucks before the beaters came up. 

 The wounded buck was afterwards recovered. There cannot 

 have been less than a thousand spotted deer in this beat ; and 

 I never before or since saw such a sight. With a breech- 

 loader twenty or thirty bucks could easily have been killed. 

 One of the bucks I killed had the largest horns I have 

 ever seen, measuring each thirty-eight inches round the 

 curve. 



I had another beat for " Whitehead" afterwards, near the 

 same place. The beaters came on him in a patch of long 

 grass jungle, from which he obstinately refused to move. He 

 had been once wounded in a drive, and never would face 

 the guns again. At last we set fire to the jungle, while I 

 awaited him on a tree at one end. The raging flames must 

 have passed completely over him, and it was not till they had 

 nearly reached my post, and the heat was exploding the dried 

 fruits of a leael tree* next to me, with reports like pistol shots, 

 that I retreated from my post. I had barely reached the 

 ground when I heard a shout from the beaters, who were all 

 in the trees round about the cover, and the tiger broke out 

 among them. Then ensued a dra wing-up of black legs, and a 

 perfect Babel of abuse of his remotest ancestors was poured on 

 him from the trees as he halted below, and looked up at them 



* ASgh marmalos. 



