THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 335 



held my hand. This was a troop of baboons hoary-bearded 

 old fellows, and matrons with their young ones in their arms 

 who were perched on the trees ahead, and had already 

 commenced their angry warnings that the tigers were there. 



Then came the glorious moment of excitement, ample 

 reward for days of bootless toil. The tigress came sneaking 

 along amongst the bushes that fringed the nala, and, halting 

 about sixty paces off, turned round her head for a moment 

 towards the beaters. Steady now ! the bottom of the neck is 

 exposed, and the sight of the big rifle bears full upon the 

 proper spot. Bang ! and with a gurgling roar, over she rolls 

 into the nala\ Is it she ? or the devil, or what 1 Certainly 

 she fell ; but, from the very spot she stood on, bounds forth 

 the image of herself, with blood pouring in torrents from a 

 gaping wound in the neck ! More still : a third leaps the 

 nala" just in front of my elephant, and the jungle seems 

 alive with tigers. I had instantly exchanged the single for 

 the double rifle, and as this one passed me at full speed, 

 I rolled her over with a broken back and a bullet through the 

 shoulder. Meantime the wounded one had disappeared behind 

 me, and I proceeded to inspect the field, and count the killed 

 and wounded. The last shot was a cub ; so was the one that 

 had rolled into the nala to the first shot ; and it was the 

 old tigress that had escaped behind me. This was all a 

 mystery, till I found that the first one was shot through the 

 heart, the ball entering through the ribs, whereas, the first 

 tiger I had fired at was standing almost facing me when 

 I pulled ; and then it was explained. One ball, the crashing 

 two-ounce one, had passed through the tigress, and killed cub 

 No. 1 on the other side. 



My little elephant, a female called Kali, quite untried, 

 which I had borrowed from the Jubbulpiir commissariat, had 



