ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 251 



all human beings mean, if not bullets, arrows, traps, dangers 

 of all sorts. 



Even should there be any suspicion of a man-eater being 

 about, these fearless children are at their posts to drive him 

 off by shouts and cries, knowing well that he would not be 

 after the goats but themselves. They would be sent out, 

 too, even if there were serious grounds for such suspicions ; 

 the flocks must feed, and must be protected, and there is 

 no one to protect them but these little fellows. Perhaps 

 their mothers at home find comfort in the firm belief in 

 Kismet, which all Eastern peoples hold — they have none 

 other, poor things ! Perhaps, too, the boys themselves keep 

 within closer call and sight of each other, and have their 

 herds more massed together, if there be such talk. So it 

 goes on for a while, and nothing happens. The man-eater 

 will bide his time, till one fine day a little chap is missing ; 

 then a child here and there out of the villages, or old people, 

 or belated folk. A cry will be heard in the night perhaps, 

 and such or such a one will never be seen again. That is 

 what happens, and the terror grows in men's minds. All un- 

 touched are the flocks and herds ; they might graze unguarded 

 now ; it is not them for whom the man-eater lies in wait. 

 For a while he gets what he is after by night, till the villagers 

 become too much terrified to be abroad then ; but before 

 long he takes toll by day. Some native shikari hears about 

 it, and brings himself and his antiquated muzzle-loaders 

 to the place. A notification is, perhaps, sent by him to the 

 Forest or Police Officer of the district, and through him to 

 the Government, who will, the shikari knows from experience, 

 offer a small but growing reward for the destruction of the 

 man-eater ; and, as might be expected, he considers it the 

 proper thing to wait till the maximum be reached — a child 

 or two more or less, or a feeble person, would matter little. 

 Were that maximum offered at the outset a week would 

 probably see the end of the tiger, for more than one shikari 



