TIGER-HAUNTED JUNGLES 29 



is so thick with smoke and dust that it seems to smother 

 all life ; and the sun no longer shines dazzling, but can 

 be stared at with open eyes. The ground and rocks are 

 too hot to touch, and the feet are scorched and blistered 

 by the baked and deeply cracked soil. There comes a 

 whistling sound in the air, which presages the coming 

 monsoon, and small whirlwinds sweep up dust and leaves 

 in pillars like devils at play. The forest, were it not for 

 the oppressive temperature, looks almost winter-like ; and 

 all birds and animals are silent and lie hidden in the 

 thickest lairs, save where a clear cool mountain stream, 

 reduced to a mere trickle, gurgles over rocks in deepest 

 ravines, where the bright shiny-leaved jamun* trees, and 

 the dark saj and sal form deep shade, and overhanging 

 precipices tower overhead in lonely valleys cut deeply in 

 the mountain-side. Here the hot-weather bird may be 

 heard with plaintive, reiterated note, rising in hasty tones 

 to a frantic screech, ' Brain fever ! brain fever ! brain 

 fever !' 



In such secluded glens the tiger sleeps all day, lying 

 half immersed in the sand by some pool where the clear 

 green water trickles from the rocks above, and forms a 

 deep cool bath, fit abode for sylvan nymphs. Here he 

 can escape from the pestering flies, and the foot of man 

 does not disturb such solitudes at this season of the year. 

 Towards evening or at early dawn, if hunger obliges him 

 to leave his chosen glen, the tiger stalks through the more 

 open forest where the sambur deer or the few remaining 

 cattle feed ; and with a swift bound he plants his great 

 claws between the shoulders of his victim, which, rushing 

 frantically forward, soon stumbles and falls under the 

 weight of the greatest feline. Then he regales himself 

 on the blood sucked from the jugular veins, and devours 

 * Syzygium jambolanum. 



