54 PANTHERS. 



muzzle of his rifle. Poulton's bullet had struck it in 

 the belly and too far back.* 



At Munchipa panthers were prowling round our camp 

 all night and killed both our milch goats ; and, as there was 

 no news of tigers, we determined to have a beat for 

 them. It was a terribly hot day, and, as we had been 

 waiting for nearly two hours at our posts, we were on the 

 point of leaving to ascertain the cause of delay, when two 

 natives, suddenly dashing out of a large cairn of rocks 

 in front, bolted past us as hard as they could, heading 

 towards the jungle behind. Baliyah, at the same instant 

 jumping on a rock, shouted in Hindustani, " Shoot the 

 murderers," " Shoot the thieves," " Don't let them 

 escape." The beaters also now appeared close behind 

 Baliyah, and joined in the chorus, but of course we did 

 not comply with their request. Baliyah now explained 

 that the runaways were part of a band of robbers, who 

 had been plundering and murdering travellers in that 

 district for some weeks ; that he only heard of their 

 being in the cairn at the beginning of the beat, and 

 decided to advance without making a noise and endeavour 

 to catch or shoot them. We searched the cairn and 

 collected some hundreds of rupees worth of heterogeneous 

 property, which was placed under charge of a police 

 peon, and a report sent to Indore of the occurrence. 

 Next morning I sent a Hindustani letter to the talookdar 

 explaining the affair. This must have been forwarded to 

 Hyderabad, as subsequently a very complimentary parch- 

 ment certificate arrived from the Dewan, the late Sir Salar 

 Jung. 



* A post-mortem revealed three unborn cubs, about the size of 

 rats, which, although devoid of hair, bore the marks of all 

 the rosettes very clearly. 



