THE TIGER-HUNT. 



131 



HKAU OK XUUXG T1GEK. 



has been pursued with great parade and show, possessing the excitement of being attended with 

 considerable danger. 



The only animal found suitable to assist in the capture of the tiger is the elephant, which often 

 displays great courage! and coolness in the chase, and at times a sagacity which has saved the rider's life. 

 On notice being given that there was a tiger in the neighbourhood, the whole station was aroused, and 

 in a state of preparation began to proceed to the cover ; the elephants were brought out, and the tumult 

 that arose before all was ready, between mahouts and syces, dogs and horses, elephants and their 

 masters, strongly contrast with the hunting establishments of our country, where rule and regularity 

 prevail. From ten to thirty of these animals, each carrying a sportsman armed with rifles of various 

 descriptions, have generally started for the jungle (though 

 sometimes a field of nearly 100 elephants have been out), and 

 commenced regularly to beat for the game. We now adopt a 

 sketch of Captain Mundy's : 



"We found immense quantities of game, wild dogs, hogs 

 and the neil-ghie, literally the blue cow. We, however, strictly 

 abstained from firing, reserving our whole battery for the nobler 

 game the tiger. It was perhaps fortunate that we did not 

 find one in the thick part of the forest, as the trees were so 

 close set, and so interwoven with thorns and parasite plants, 

 that the elephants were often obliged to clear for themselves a 

 passage by their own pressing exertions. It is curious, on these 

 occasions, to see the enormous trees these animals will over- 

 throw on a word from the mahout : they place their foreheads 

 against the obnoxious plants, twisting their trunks round it, 

 and gradually bending it towards the ground, until they can 



place a foot upon it. This done, down comes the tree with crashing stem and upturned roots. The 

 elephant must be well educated to accomplish this duty in a gentleman-like manner ; that is, without 

 roaring sulkily, or shaking his master by too violent exertions. 



" On clearing the wood, we entered an open space of marshy grass, not three feet high ; a large 

 herd of cattle were feeding there, and the herdsman was sitting singing under a bush ; when, just as 

 the former began to move before us, up sprang the very tiger to whom our visit was intended, and 

 cantered off across a bare plain, dotted with small patches of bush-jungle. He took to the open 

 country in a style that would have more become a fox than a tiger, who is expected by his pursuers to 

 fight and not to run ; and as he was flushed on the flank of the line, only one bullet was fired at him 

 ere he cleared the thick grass. He was unhurt, and we pursued him at full speed. 



" Twice he threw us out by stopping short in small strips of jungle, and then tearing back after 

 we had passed ; and he had given us a very fast trot of about two miles, when Colonel Arnold, who 

 led the field, at last reached him by a capital shot, his elephant being in full career. As soon as he 

 felt himself wounded, the tiger crept into a close thicket of trees and bushes, and crouched. The two 

 leading sportsmen overran the spot where he lay ; and as I came up I saw him, through an aperture, 

 rising to attempt a charge. My mahout had just before, in the heat of the chase, dropped his goad, 

 which I had refused to allow him to recover ; and the elephant being notoriously savage, and further 

 irritated by the goading he had undergone, became, consequently, unmanageable ; he appeared to see 

 the tiger as soon as myself, and I had only time to fire one shot, when he suddenly rushed with the 

 greatest fury into the thicket, and falling on his knees, nailed the tiger with his tusks to the ground. 



" Such was the violence of the shock, that my servant, who sat behind, was thrown out, and one 

 of my guns went overboard. The struggles of my elephant to crush his still resisting foe, who had 

 fixed one paw on his eye, were so energetic that I was obliged to hold on with all my strength, to keep 

 myself in the lioudnh. The second barrel, too, of the gun which I still retained in my hand, went off 

 in the scuffle, the ball passing close to the mahout's ear, whose situation, poor fellow, was anything 

 but enviable. As soon as my elephant was prevailed upon to leave the killing part of the business to 

 the sportsmen, they gave the roughly-used tiger the coup de grace.. It was a very tine female, with 

 the most beautiful skin I ever saw." 



