295 



THE KODERMA MAN-EATER. 



" How long, oh Sahib ! how long are thy servants 

 to be food for the tiger ? Are you not our father and 

 mother, and we, servants of the Great Queen ? Can 

 you not tell the Dipty Sahib or the Lot Sahib, and 

 proclaim by beat of drum in the three thanas of 

 Chorporan, Koderma and Gay a that the agrarees 

 (charcoal-burners) are not to be eaten of tigers ? 

 What have we done that we, who share the forests 

 with the wild beasts, who burn charcoal and collect 

 iron-sand for our smelting furnaces in the most 

 lonesome parts of the jungle, should now be 

 debarred from pursuing our daily avocations by 

 this son of shaitan (devil). It mattered not when 

 he killed the cheating golas (herdsmen), who 

 watered our milk and sold curds that had 

 gone bad ; or even the evil-smelling chamar 

 (the lowest caste in the native village, whose 

 perquisite it is to have all cattle killed by 

 tigers, or which have died from disease), who 

 robs the tiger of half his kill, and even eats 

 that which Mahadev has slain. Had I not given 

 Kadun, the Poojaree, two white cocks to be sacri- 

 ficed at the shrine of the Great Mother, when Bola 

 was taken by the tiger, and then did not we charcoal- 



