TIGERS. 75 



comment. The rewards were as follows : Tigers, twenty 

 Halli Sicca rupees (Hyderabad currency) ; bears, hyaenas, 

 and wolves, five each ; and panthers, ten. A few 

 days later we arrived at Shamantapoor and pitched our 

 camp close to a large wooded nullah where our buffaloes 

 were tied up. The head shikari requested that one of us 

 should accompany him when he visited these in the morn- 

 ings and evenings, stating that a " very depraved " tiger 

 was in this jungle, almost as bad as the Poppinapett fiend. 



Accordingly I went out with him that afternoon, and 

 had not gone 300 yards before we encountered two bears 

 in the aforesaid nullah, which were allowed to go 

 unmolested, lest the shots should scare away the tiger 

 whose pugs were in every sandy nullah huge ones they 

 were too ; in fact, so large that we nicknamed him the 

 " soup plate wallah," as they were supposed to be equal 

 to that utensil in size. The hay las were usually tied near 

 water, in places where it was expected the tiger would 

 come to drink, and as he generally walks along roads 

 or tracks in the night, the meeting of several of these 

 was always a favourite spot for a tie. When visited, they 

 were always foddered and watered. To secure the animal 

 the foot was firmly tied to a stake driven into the ground, 

 or to a bush. If tied by the head, the poor beast was liable 

 to be strangled in its efforts to escape if the tiger approached 

 it, which he often did without any intention of killing, and 

 on several occasions he had evidently been playing with 

 them, as was plainly visible by the tracks. The feelings 

 of the unlucky hayla under these circumstances can be 

 more easily imagined than described. 



The next day Poulton visited the buffaloes accompanied 

 by the shikari and bail coolies carrying fodder. There wa> 

 no kill, but during his afternoon round, the tiger walked 



