102 TIGERS. 



travellers' bungalow at Benkipore. My hay las were tied 

 up there, and after two days there was a kill, followed by 

 a beat. The tracks showed it was a tigress with two cubs, 

 but the jungle was very dense, full of caroonda and jamun 

 bushes, and over one hundred yards broad in places, and 

 it would have required 150 beaters at least to work it 

 properly, whereas but sixty could be obtained ; moreover, 

 although the man-eater had been killed, her memory was 

 still green, and they kept too close together, leaving strips 

 of jungle unbeaten. 



I once lost a fine tiger in the Hyderabad country owing 

 to the beaters grouping themselves in this way. We were 

 beating a broad and dry nullah, which was said to be the 

 favourite lurking place of a local cattle-lifter. Early in the 

 beat a hyena was started, and somebody mistaking it for a 

 tiger, raised the cry " Pedda puli." This unsteadied the 

 beaters a good deal, and they commenced to gather into 

 groups, in spite of the shikaries' efforts to preserve an 

 unbroken line. It was a fearfully hot day in the month of 

 May. The shikari wanted me to climb a tree, but it was 

 not the weather for that sort of amusement, and I took up 

 a position on a sloping sheet of rock, close to a cave on a 

 small island in the nullah, having placed some palas-kino 

 leaves on the burning rock to sit upon, and poured water 

 from the " chagul " * over my head to keep it cool. Presently 

 a fine tiger came slowly down the nullah towards me. At 

 that time I had a stupid and fallacious theory that in 

 addition to other cat-like attributes a tiger's sight was bad 

 in bright sunshine, and I accordingly made no attempt to 

 conceal myself (which might have been done, as he was over 

 200 yards distant, and frequently hidden by bushes), 



* A leathern bag holding two quarts of drinking water, 

 which is kept cool by evaporation. 



