i02 INT TttE INDIAN JUNGLE. 



bungalow. This of itself is a very seiious loss 

 to the villagers, whose chief means of subsistence 

 is agriculture, for which cattle are essential ; and 

 if Beema had not thus come to their assistance 

 several families of ryots (cultivators) would pro- 

 bably have been ruined. 



So much to establish the claims to gentle treat- 

 ment of my friend the tiger-slayer ; and now for 

 his story : 



" I was not always a bagh-maree, Huzoor (Sir). 

 I am a tantee (weaver) by caste. But a chota bagh 

 (panther) did it. It made me a bagh-maree. It 

 was not a tiger at all ; it was a witch that had 

 entered the body of a tiger, to do me an injury. 

 I paid Gagee the Gond two rupees for a charm, 

 and after three years I killed it. Huzoor, you 

 know that I killed it behind your bawarchee-khana 

 (kitchen) the day after it had killed and eaten 

 Madho's son last year. I know the animal to be 

 the witch by the piece out of its ear which I cut 

 off with my bulloova (battle-axe) three years ago 

 at Bara, my village. Gagee the Gond made the 

 charm out of that piece of its ear, and I have the 

 charm yet. Here it is, and there (pointing to 

 the skin on my verandah wall) is the devil. I 

 became a bagh-maree out of revenge. You see 

 my head ; it is nearly bald, and the girls laugh 

 at me and say I am old, pointing to my baldness, 

 but the witch did that three years ago. 



" I made a cloth for an old woman of our village, 

 and charged her one rupee and a half for it. It 

 cost me one rupee two annas worth of cotton 



