AFTER TIGERS. 47 



appeared to be very large. Vexed with my bad luck ; I 

 turned home, wishing I had had old Emam with me instead 

 of only this young half-fledged shikarie. 



Another day I had a little excitement when out with 

 Emam ; we came to a place where a tiger had been dragging 

 some animal, which, from the bits of skin and hair, we found 

 to be a sambur. Emam took up the track with the eagerness 

 of an old hound finding a scent, and whispered to me that we 

 should come on the tiger directly, and that I was to shoot him 

 "bey shuk" (without doubt). I did not half like the idea of 

 meeting my first tiger on foot, especially as I had missed, 

 failed to bag, is a pleasanter way of putting it, a fine bull 

 bison that very morning ! From after experience I am sure 

 beginners often miss large game from firing through bamboos 

 and bushes, as it is surprising how small a twig will turn 

 a bullet quite wide of the mark ; this, and what I have already 

 written with regard to seeing where the heart is, I hope 

 accounts for some desperate misses I have made at bison 

 almost as big as barn doors ! But to return to the tiger. 

 I was determined that the old savage should not see that I 

 did not like it, so on I went, cautiously creeping after him, 

 hoping all the time that the tiger had choked himself, or had 

 finished his dinner and made himself scarce. As luck would 

 have it, he had done the latter, and it was on this occasion 

 that I spoke to Emam about shooting a tiger on foot in an 

 open forest like the Dandilly, and he then gave me the advice 

 already mentioned ; he also added that if we had come on the 

 tiger, and he was facing us, he would not have let me fire. 



On leaving the Dandilly forest we went to different places 

 where tigers were known to be. The plan adopted was to post 

 bullocks in likely places, and obtain, if we could, "a kill" 



