SHOOT A TIGRESS AFTER A GOOD FIGHT 453 



with us. We stopped a day or two at Luckeepore, as guests 

 of the Zemindar there. The Palace is a curiosity shop, which 

 he is very fond of showing to people. He had a large stud 

 of elephants amongst them a well-known one-tusker shikarie 

 elephant, Mainah. His son quite a young man was a bit 

 of a poacher, but had been very successful, having killed a 

 lot of elephants, rhinoceros, tigers, and other game. The 

 country is full of game. 



On the 29th Comber and I were out after game. My 

 elephant, Lutchmie, began to trumpet in a peculiarly pitiful 

 way, and I called out to my comrade to be on the look-out, 

 as there was evidently a tiger near ; we immediately formed 

 line and carefully advanced. The elephants all began to give 

 tongue and did not seem keen to move ahead. The grass 

 had been prematurely burnt, the stalks had only been charred 

 and were still standing, and through them we saw a tigress 

 sneaking away. We both fired and missed ; she then ran 

 down the bank of a nullah and up the other side ; I fired and 

 hit her through the thigh ; she roared and disappeared. We 

 got the elephants close together and steadily progressed. 

 Comber was on Mainah. We had not gone far when the 

 tigress charged, picking out the biggest elephant of course ; 

 we reserved our fire until she was within a few paces, then 

 fired and bowled her over. Not an elephant moved. She 

 picked herself up as quick as lightning, retreated a few yards, 

 and then came at us again ; this time she picked out Lutchmie, 

 but a right and a left from me and a shot from Comber sent 

 her to the right-about. She ran down the bank of a rivulet, 

 swam through, and as she was ascending the opposite bank 

 I killed her. She was only a small beast, 8 feet long. That 

 was the only luck we had ; we shot a deer or two, and saw 

 rhinoceros and buffaloes, but got no shots at them, they were 

 too wild to get near. We got wet through, as a torrent of 

 rain set in, and we were glad to get home and change. 



May i. Comber and I went on elephants across country 

 to Dhobree, whilst our comrade, who was not a sportsman, 

 went on his pony by a village track. We saw lots of deer, 

 and at Tihri Killah got into rhinoceros ground. Comber 

 killed a cow and called out to me to look out. I saw some 



