268 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



though the bison had won a signal victory, it was also a 

 bloodless one. 



A tiger's tactics with a full-grown bison are, in the first 

 place, to get between it and the main body of the herd, 

 and then to stalk it and stalk it tirelessly, allowing it neither 

 rest nor sleep by day or by night, it being as natural for a 

 tiger to cover leagues during the night as it is for the other 

 to sleep. At length, too weary to travel farther, the 

 hunted creature falls, and is soon overpowered. Even before 

 it actually sinks the pursuer can leap on to its neck, and 

 hanging there suck out the life-blood ; for the exhausted 

 bison cannot shake off the incubus, and has perforce to 

 give up its struggle for life, fortunate if it be indeed dead be- 

 fore being devoured piecemeal. Once on the track, a tiger 

 will never relinquish his quest till one or the other be 

 worsted, and that is generally the bison — possibly a bull. 

 Not even his grand strength can hold out against the 

 effects of that sleepless week or even fortnight. In one 

 case we knew for certain that the pursuit had lasted a 

 fortnight. 



As to the height of a cow bison I am not sure. F. never 

 shot one, nor would any true sportsman do so except by 

 accident, or if he were attacked. A bull may stand twenty 

 hands at the withers ; that would be a splendid fellow, a 

 hand being four inches wide. The largest secured by F. 

 measured nineteen hands three inches, and comparing it 

 with the height of a big dray-horse, which is about seven- 

 teen hands, the tremendous bulk of a bull bison can be 

 imagined. One that reached twenty hands fell to a friend's 

 gun, but F. had many a trophy of nineteen. Smaller 

 specimens he did not trouble to get — a matter he could 

 gauge by eye. 



The very next evening after that pitched battle several 

 of our bullocks and milch-goats were feeding well within 

 sight, when the little chap in charge of them, who had been 



