20 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



of the chase of the past season are looked up, dried when the 

 sun breaks out hotly, to be repacked or soldered down in 

 tin, and despatched home to friends and relatives. 



In some parts of the country tigers may be successfully 

 sought and shot in August, when the rivers are at their 

 highest flood and the country is a vast sheet of water ; but 

 the sport is such as to attract the keenest sportsman only, 

 since the travelling in boats and the beating with elephants, 

 the rank and dripping coverts swarming with leeches and 

 vermin, are not agreeable recreations in themselves ; besides, 

 the alternations of extreme heat and damp, the ducking in a 

 heavy shower, followed by a simmering in the hot sun im- 

 mediately afterwards, are neither pleasant nor wholesome. 

 On the other hand, the finding of a couple or more of savage 

 and half -starved tigers on a grassy islet ro a bush and tree- 

 covered hummock, is not without its charms, but there is no 

 gainsaying the fact, that sport followed in this manner 

 and at this season, has as many attendant discomforts as 

 camping in tents in the cold season has pleasures and 

 enjoyments. 



I have a vivid recollection of one such trip, undertaken in 

 the month of August with a friend and brother-sportsman, 

 which may serve as a sample of that kind of experience ; 

 more as to the mode of travelling than as regards the sport 

 obtained on that occasion, for that was very little indeed, our 

 expedition having been deferred unavoidably till the first 

 great flood of the season had somewhat abated, and the tigers, 

 driven into the nearest spots of high ground on the rising of 

 the waters, had got away elsewhere on their partial sub- 

 sidence. 



Our elephants, seven or eight in number, had been sent 

 ahead of us, accompanied by a boat, carrying the " howdahs " 

 and other impedimenta, and the left bank of the Megna, 

 opposite the village, or rather cluster of villages, called 

 " Atgaon " in Mymensingh, named as the rendezvous. Leaving 

 the little Station of Cornillah after dinner in our fast " bujra," 

 with another boat serving as kitchen and tender, we found 



