BEATING THE JUNGLE. 7 



hurrah ! for the jungle. I know not a finer 

 or more exciting spectacle than a luie of 

 elephants beating for tigers. The larger 

 and most coui-ageous elephants carrying the 

 howdahs, placed at eqvial distances, with 

 the inferior animals between as beaters, 

 sometimes almost hidden from each other, 

 as the line advances through the tall grass 

 and reeds, thickly matted together by the 

 luxuriant growth of innumerable shrubs 

 and creepers, the mahouts alternately 

 coaxing and bullying the huge animals as 

 they go crushing theii" way deliberately 

 through the jungle, with an occasional shrill 

 cry of pain and disgust from some elephant 

 more timid or thin-skinned than the others, 

 at being forced through a thorny mass of 

 tangled rose bushes — a favourite lay of 

 tigers ; the startled deer, feathered game, 

 rising every few paces ; the well-appointed 

 sportsmen, the white garments of the 

 mahouts, the wild-looking half naked 

 villager taken up from his fields, to show 

 the ground ; all form together a scene not 



