296 IN THE INDIAN JUNGLE. 



burners subscribe and buy a kassee (he-goat) when 

 Moortah fell a victim ? No later than bazaar-day 

 we got two pigs from Chirala and sacrificed at 

 Kali's shrine, and yet at noon this very day my 

 own mother's sister's son was taken at Bageetand 

 by the devil and son of a devil." 



Such was the tale of Jiban shikaree and char- 

 coal-burner poured out in disjointed phrases on 

 my arrival at camp after a few days' absence. 



Many is the fine haunch of venison, plump pea- 

 fowl and smaller game of sorts that Jiban has sup- 

 plied for my larder, and many is the chat I have 

 had with him on the habits of wild beasts, with 

 which he is familiar ; his days being spent in char- 

 coal-burning and many of his nights in sitting be- 

 hind a light screen of branches at some forest pool 

 that wild animals frequented. He was a little bit 

 given to exaggeration, but withal truthful ; hence 

 it was that I gave more attention to his story of 

 the famous man-eating tiger that was doing so 

 much damage to human life in the police thanas of 

 Koderma, Chorporan and Gaya. This brute made 

 his first human kill in March, and since that 

 date no fewer than twenty-seven persons have 

 been carried off in the three above-named police 

 circuits within three months this is the record 

 even among famous man-eating tigers. Natives 

 say that the number is even higher, and that it 

 is the invariable custom of this ferocious brute 

 to kill and devour a human being every other day, 

 and that many of these cases are not reported to 

 the police, 



