2i8 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



up wind as much as possible, and to place some howdahs 

 forward as long-stops at the end of the beat, in case of 

 tigers moving off too soon. 



All preparations being duly made, the long array of 

 elephants starts for the ground where khahar has been 

 given that three tigers have been tracked to a certain 

 swampy nullah. Including several belonging to the 

 Rajah of Rampur, there are twenty-eight elephants all 

 told — eight howdahs, and twenty beating elephants with 

 pads, on which ride shikaris and village guides and 

 chaparsis, armed only with spears or latties. These 

 men have to hold tight on to the ropes which bind the 

 pads to the elephants' backs. Between each howdah in 

 the line are two or three pad elephants. No word is to 

 be spoken as the long-stops are sent on to their posts. 

 The Rajah is mounted on a very fine elephant, and his 

 howdah is painted and gilded in gorgeous tints, his gay- 

 coloured attire and liveried attendants contrasting with 

 the plain teak and cane-sided howdahs of the more busi- 

 ness-like sahibs, and their brown, drab-coloured clothing. 

 Each sahib has his loader in the seat behind him, and his 

 battery of eight or ten barrels handily placed in niches 

 to his right and left, the barrels pointing up and forward. 

 The i6 or 12-bore round bullet, with a fair strength of 

 powder behind, was then used preferably with rifle or 

 smooth bore, but some preferred a conical bullet. 



The elephants are soon in position, advancing through 

 the long grass from the south, now spreading out wide 

 apart so as to cover the whole strip, now concentrating 

 more closely as the width of the jungle becomes less, 

 always forging onward towards the point where the tiger 

 would probably break northward. 



Symptoms of tiger presently are too plain — the torn 

 and half-eaten carcase of a poor white cow, or the bones 



