88 TIGERS. 



We promised to let him know the result of our endea- 

 vours, and a fortnight afterwards, at Golamorra, news was 

 brought into camp one morning, that a buffalo had been 

 killed in a send-bund two miles distant, which was one of 

 the tiger's favourite haunts. There was a large tank close 

 by, where he was in the habit of drinking, the jungles all 

 round abounded with nilghai, cheetul, sambur, and pig ; 

 but in spite of all this luxury, his reputation was an evil 

 one, the natives alleging that, although not a professed 

 man-eater, he varied his bill of fare about once a month 

 with a human being, his last victim being a toddy man, 

 who was killed and eaten in the very tope we were going 

 to beat. His realms extended as far as Paradi, some ten 

 miles off ; the intervening country swarmed with game, 

 especially nilghai and pig, so there was no excuse for his 

 penchant for human flesh. Beaters having been procured 

 with some difficulty, as it was a jungly district containing 

 but a few small villages far apart, we proceeded to the tope, 

 enlisting some Brinjarries as beaters on the way. The 

 grove was partly composed of date palms, and partly of 

 ordinary deciduous trees, such as mhowa, wood apple, kino, 

 and ailanthus, all now denuded of foliage ; with the 

 exception of a mango tope at one end. From a distance it 

 much resembled an ordinary English rectangular wood of 

 six acres in extent. We were posted in echelon, Manley 

 being on the left front, and I on the right in rear, some 

 sixty yards behind Poulton. The tiger soon appeared, 

 passing Manley at about thirty yards distance, and, on 

 being fired at by him, he charged straight under Poulton, 

 who also fired, causing him to swerve towards me. He came 

 crashing along through the undergrowth of stunted palms, 

 but I could not see him till he was almost underneath me, 

 and then missed him clean. He pulled up within thirty 



