102 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



that this beast was severely wounded that we fully expected 

 to pad him where he was seen to drop from his upright atti- 

 tude ; but no tiger was there, nor a drop of blood either on 

 the grass or the hard dry ground ; accordingly the beat was 

 resumed after a fast elephant had been detached from each 

 flank, to hasten on ahead to the river bank as scouts to watch 

 its sandy bed. This beat too ending without anything more 

 being seen of the object of our pursuit, we returned once 

 more, and thoroughly treading down the jungle quite up to 

 the open country at the neck of the loop, failed to find any 

 traces of the tiger, nor any upon another beat back to the 

 river ; and this surprised and perplexed us the more because 

 the scouts left upon the river bank reported that nothing had 

 been seen to cross it, nor on ^search being made could fresh 

 foot-prints be detected on the sands below. 



We argued that if this tiger had not crossed to the opposite 

 bank, as a sensible and reasonable beast would do, seeing that 

 there lay his safety in the high woods and dense thickets of 

 thorns, he must be lying dead probably in some indentation 

 of the ground, concealed by the matted grass, and overlooked 

 by some careless or unobservant " mahout." Such being the 

 conclusion arrived at, our next act was to set fire to the dry 

 grass on the river side, from whence the brisk west breeze 

 rapidly blew it to the other extremity, reducing all to ashes 

 in a very short space of time. As soon as the earth was suf- 

 ficiently cooled to be traversed we passed over it, momentarily 

 expecting to come upon the singed carcase of our troublesome 

 friend ; but that day we were doomed to be disappointed, his 

 much decomposed remains not being found till several days 

 subsequently by some villagers, who had gone into the tree 

 coverts on the other bank of the river in search of stray 

 cattle ; so that this crafty beast had after all crossed the river, 

 probably on one of the flanks, after slinking along under the 

 high bank for some distance, and he had without doubt 

 rapidly effected his escape unseen, immediately after he 

 dropped from his erect posture, while we were delayed by 

 the clubbing of our line of elephants. 



