78 TIGERS. 



Poulton shot a fine sambur next morning, the venison 



being very like beef in flavour and appearance, which was 



a welcome change from the everlasting goat's flesh and 



murghi (fowl). We had lately attempted to vary this 



with some bear's meat, but the result was disastrous and 



unexpected ; generally speaking it is wholesome food, but 



on this occasion it proved quite the reverse. We missed 



vegetables more than anything else one always has a 



great longing for them, which is seldom gratified in the 



jungle exposure to the sun seeming to cause distaste for 



meat diet ; we had, however, plenty of potatoes and pickled 



onions, and mainly from these, concocted an excellent salad 



every night for dinner. The shikaries brought in news 



after breakfast of a kill near Lingumpulli, a small village of 



some half a dozen houses, about two koss off (four miles). 



On arrival there we found but four beaters available, only 



one house being inhabited by a decrepit old man and his 



sons, who stated they were the sole occupants of the 



village, all the others having run away or been killed by 



the big tiger (soup-plate wallah). They declared that the 



tigress did no harm, but that the " burra bagh " was a 



" shaitan,"* and that if their old father could have been 



moved from his hut they would have migrated elsewhere 



with their friends. The shikaries, who had been scouring 



the country for beaters directly they had heard of the gara, 



soon arrived with about one hundred men. The scene of 



operations was a thickly-wooded triangular valley of about 



five acres in extent. From one corner a broad nullah now 



dry ran towards Kowlass ; it was full of islands covered 



with Indian beech, caroonda bushes, palas kino trees, and 



long grass, and we were posted near its exit from the 



valley. The hills, devoid of any covert but some straggling 



* The big tiger was a devil. 



