310 A TIGEK STORY. 



driver, is very critical ; for, placed on the elephant's neck, he has no 

 other defence than the sharp iron-pointed stick which he uses to 

 guide his colossal steed. Fortunately the hunters are arrayed in a 

 compact mass, and a few well-directed shots terminate the struggle. 



The most favourable districts for tiger-hunting, continues Mr. 

 Stocqueler, are those of Goruckpore, on the frontiers of Nepaul. Sir 

 Roger Martin relates that in this quarter once reigned a tiger of such 

 ferocity, and so greedy of human blood, that he was the terror of all 

 the " country-side." Once he broke open, in full day-light, the 

 cabin-door of a Taroo ; but the native dealt him such a lusty blow 

 on the head with his hatchet that he took to flight, and ever after- 

 wards preserved the mark of the wound, which caused him to be 

 easily recognized, and dreaded all the more. Sir Roger resolved to 

 free the country from this plague ; he took the field like a gallant 

 soldier, but slew eight-and-forty tigers before he fell in with the 

 Balafre' of ill renown, who defended himself gallantly, and proved 

 no easy victim. Abbye-Singh, rajah of Omorah, one of the oldest 

 hunters of the country, slew, it is said, to his own hand more than 

 five hundred tigers ; a fact which illustrates their numerousness in 

 the Terac, Nepaul, and Goruckpore. Despite the activity and address 

 of the hunters, they would never succeed in purging the country ; 

 but civilization and clearances of the ground are driving the wild 

 beasts inch by inch towards the north, where the hardy amateurs of 

 "sport" must now go in quest of them. 



Among the Felidse of the Old World peculiar to Tropical Asia, I 

 must cite the Reinaoudahan, distinguished by his woolly and tufted 

 tail, from whence he has received the name of the " Fox- tailed Tiger," 

 and the Gutpard, or " Maned Leopard," "Hunting Leopard," and 

 " Cheetah." I am inclined to believe that these two varieties really 

 signify one animal ; the Gueparda jubata of naturalists. " Inter- 

 mediate in size and shape between the leopard and the hound," says 

 Burnett, " he is slenderer in his body, more elevated on his legs, and 

 less flattened on the fore part of his head than the former, while he 



