SEARCH FOR A FAMOUS MAN-EATER. 87 



was almost "toothless, a few broken stumps only remaining. 

 "No wonder, then, that she felt herself incapable of pursuing, 

 seizing, and holding down bullocks, deer, and wild hog. 



One of the handsomest, fattest, and most powerful of tigers 

 ever bagged by me was a desperate and fearless man-eater, 

 who picked up people from their very homesteads and levied 

 toll along the paths and roads on market days in broad day- 

 light and in the most open manner ; but it may be admitted 

 that the prevailing idea as to the superior cunning of man- 

 eaters is correct, but that of inferior courage is open to 

 doubt. 



The large man-eater above alluded to was killed while I 

 was living at Jalaisur, on the left bank of the Soobunreeka 

 river, in the Midnapoor district, a place to which we retired 

 from Contai in the rainy season when completely worn out 

 by the bad climate of that station. Jalaisur was in our juris- 

 diction, and boasted what hotel-keepers style a comparatively 

 " salubrious air." 



It was about the end of October ; S., my assistant and 

 chum, had gone away on leave, and thus I was alone, and, 

 being left without, much official work at that, the deadest 

 season of the year, it was quite a relief to be called upon by 

 the inhabitants of some villages on the opposite bank to rid 

 them of a tiger which was playing havoc among them. There 

 was then, as there is still, an abundance of game in and 

 around that country tigers, panthers, bears, spotted and 

 barking deer, sambur, and various game birds ; buffaloes and 

 antelope have, I believe, disappeared, though once plentiful 

 too ; but the season and the wet condition of the country were 

 against sport, except snipe-shooting and an occasional excur- 

 sion after a panther or a bear. My work being light then, 

 and no other sport engrossing my time, I devoted nearly a 

 fortnight to the search for that tiger, beating with my 

 elephants at intervals of two or three days all the heavy 

 jungles round about for many miles without once sighting 

 him, and finding only his fresh lairs, the bones of his victims, 

 and other signs of his near presence. Once I came upon some of 



