CHARACTER OF THE MAN-EATER. 271 



his attacks. Their occupations of cattle-gi'azing or wood-cutting take them 

 into the jungles, where they feel that they go with their lives in their hands. 

 A rustling leaf, or a squirrel or bird moving in the undergrowth, sets their 

 hearts beating with a dread sense of danger. The only security they feel is 

 in numbers. Though the bloodthirsty monster is perhaps reposing with the 

 remains of his last victim miles away, the terror he inspires is always pres- 

 ent to every one throughout his domain. The rapidity and uncertainty of 

 a man-eater's movements form the chief elements of the dread he causes. 

 His name is in every one's mouth ; his daring, ferocity, and appalling ap- 

 pearance are represented with true Eastern exaggeration ; and until some 

 European sportsman, perhaps after days or weeks of pursuit, lays him low, 

 thousands live in fear day and night. Bold man-eaters have been known to 

 enter a village and carry off a victim from the first open hut. Having lived 

 in a tract so circumstanced until I shot the fiend that possessed it, and 

 having myseK felt something of the grim dread that had taken hold of the 

 country-side, where ordinary rambling about the jungles, and even sitting 

 outside the tent after dark except with a large fire, or moving from the en- 

 campment without an escort, were unsafe, I could realise the feelings of 

 relief and thankfulness so earnestly expressed by the poor ryots when I shot 

 the Jezebel that had held sway over them so long. 



The man-eater is often an old tiger (more frequently a tigress), or an 

 animal that, through having been wounded or otherwise hurt, has been un- 

 able to procure its usual food, and takes to this means of subsistence. It 

 is invariably an ex-cattle-killer that, from constant intercourse with man, 

 has become divested of its natural dread of our race, and interference with 

 whose kills has caused collisions between itself and cow-herds which have 

 finally led to its preying upon the hitherto dreaded man when other food 

 fails. The man-eater is as cowardly as it is cunning, fleeing before an 

 armed man, between whom and a possible victim it discriminates with 

 wonderful sagacity. The slightest sound of any one in pursuit of it, even 

 the whisper of a single sportsman with one or two trackers in its haunts, 

 starts it at once ; it will then probably travel for miles, though even whilst 

 fleeing it may pounce upon some unwary victim, as I have seen an ordinary 

 tiger seize a bullock when itself the object of hot pursuit. Tliis combi- 

 nation of cowardice and audacity constitutes the difficulty there always is in 

 bringing a man-eater to bag. 



Though the belief that some tigers confine themselves entirely to human 

 flesh is undoubtedly erroneous, a man is so much more easily overcome than 

 any other animal that man-eaters frequently seize cow-herds in preference 

 to the cattle they are in charge of. It is this which has led to the belief 



