MY HENCHMAN, DOOLAP. 127 



with a rat or a small bird. It was this last feat which had 

 caused the most serious panic, and driven the people from 

 their work. 



I had brought with me an experienced Christian 

 " Shikaree," a steady and bold man, with fair ability at track- 

 ing, whose real name was a high-sounding one of Portuguese 

 nobility, but who answered to the more humble one of 

 " Doolap." My follower was one of some hundreds who lived 

 in those parts, Coelhos, Albuquerques, Rodriques, D'Souzas 

 &c. ; left-handed descendants of Portuguese adventurers of 

 the seventeenth century some pirates, others fair traders, 

 and not a few something between the two as occasion or 

 temptation made them. Doolap, although a Portuguese 

 nobleman by descent, was as black as any Bengalee of those 

 parts, and resembled them in dress, as well as his style of 

 living and language, and except that his features were some- 

 what dissimilar, and his build sturdier, might well be taken 

 for any ordinary Bengalee villager of the country. As for 

 religion Doolap was of course a Roman Catholic, but one 

 without prejudices, and indeed without any knowledge of 

 his creed beyond that of certain duties to his priesthood, and 

 some proper observances at the chapel he attended once or 

 twice a year, without understanding much the ceremonies 

 performed therein. 



In addition to the above-named henchman, I had enlisted 

 the services and attendance of a local " Shikaree," a Mussul- 

 man, whose wide mouth and lantern jaws were garnished with 

 thin white moustaches and a goatee beard, giving him with 

 his coal-black face the semblance of a patriarchal " lungoar." 

 My new esquire looked sixty, though less by ten years than 

 that age, and was as thin, knotty, and dusky as a burnt reed, 

 but he could walk without fatigue from sunrise to sunset, 

 subsisting on food which would starve a weasel. "Moula 

 Buksh " was an experienced hand, and had himself killed or 

 assisted to kill many tigers, but this one was, he confessed, 

 too many for him ; and he added that, although he knew her 

 lairs, her watering-places, her favourite walks, and ways in 



