EXCITING CHASE AFTER A TIGER. 187 



bungalow just at dark uncommonly proud of my afternoon's 

 shikar — went to bed, and dreamt of tigers which were 

 killed over night and not to be found again. After 

 breakfast the next morning we went off, and my mind was 

 put at rest when I saw the grand beast lying in the same 

 spot I had left him on the preceding evening ; he certainly 

 was a splendid fellow, a four year old male in splendid con- 

 dition, with a beautiful skin. 



On another occasion when at the hut, I went to the ibex 

 ground to look for sambur, and as I was going down the 

 long hill I saw something crossing the nullah at the bottom ; 

 h looked like a large light-coloured stag, but on putting up 

 the glasses I saw it was a tiger. He appeared to catch sight 

 of us and slowly walked towards the shola on my right, but 

 after approaching close to its edge, turned back again and 

 rubbed his face against the leaves of a bush, then laid down 

 on the bank ; being on the open hill side there was no way of 

 getting down to him without being seen. He soon sat up 

 again, crossed the stream towards another shola, but after 

 a few paces again lay down and began rolling about on 

 his back. Whilst thus occupied I took the opportunity of 

 crossing the hill and getting under the lee of the shola he 

 was making for, and when under cover I stopped and put 

 some fresh powder on the nipples of my rifle, and whilst 

 doing so missed a fine opportunity, for the tiger had passed 

 along the other side of the stream. I ran up as hard as 

 1 could, a tree between us preventing his seeing me, but 

 when I got to the tree he was too far off. I ran down 

 and up a dip beyond ; the brute was walking steadily on 

 straight away from me, and as there appeared no chance of 

 getting up to him and not liking to run close to him on level 



