322 A NATIVE FEAT. 



nothing was the matter with him, dashed through the nets, was missed 

 by both of us owing to intervening bushes, and made good his escape. So 

 much for head-shots, which should generally be avoided, except at close 

 quarters. 



In the present instance we might have gone in again from the other 

 side, and perhaps have shot our tigress as she lay ; but there was a safer, 

 though less expeditious, way of bringing her to bag, and as we never courted 

 danger unnecessarily we changed our plans. I sent to Morlay for aU the 

 tiger-nets, and by evening the cover was securely surrounded by men and 

 fires ; the circle was about a hundred yards in diameter. Our first care on 

 the completion of the circle had been to go in force and cut a path up to 

 the tree where the tracker was, from an opposite direction to our former 

 advance, and we released him without seeing the tigress. 



"We spent a night of merriment at the surround. I ordered four sheep 

 from camp, which the hunters decapitated at the spot where it was decided 

 to enter the enclosed space on the morrow, and after sprinkling the nets and 

 ground with blood, they mounted the heads on spears and carried them three 

 times round the circle with torches, horns, and tomtoms. Some particular 

 plant also had to be hunted up in the dark, to be worshipped in accordance 

 with the observances on such occasions, at the proposed point of entrance. 

 The sheep were then divided, and between feasting and story-telling the 

 time passed agreeably. One man did a feat which amused everybody. It 

 constituted a good example of the cleverness of natives at this class of per- 

 formance, of which sword -swallowing, splitting cocoa-nuts on their bare 

 pates, &c., are instances. He took a piece of stout twine about four feet 

 long, and introducing one end, by the aid of a stick, into one of his nos- 

 trils, he brought it into his mouth through the hole of communication near 

 the palate, and then drew the end out of his mouth. There was no decep- 

 tion. I tested the genuineness of the feat by observing a mark on the 

 string outside the mouth, and by merely pulling the end brought it down the 

 nostril, and vice, versd. To this string the performer tied a weighty stone, 

 and carried it about ! 



The tigress only showed herseK once, about five in the morning, but 

 upon a blazing firebrand alighting on her already damaged head she with- 

 drew promptly. I had got old Bheemruttee from Chamraj -Nuggar over- 

 night, and under her protection I now entered the surround and climbed a 

 tree, past which Bheemruttee soon drove the tigress, still perfectly active, 

 and I kiUed her. 



On this occasion it will be seen that we went into a favourable cover 

 only, and kept well out of the immediate reach of the tigress ; and though 



