ENCOUNTER WITH BUFFALOES. 305 



promptly enough by the servant who carried it, and who, 

 according to custom, had loitered behind to enable me to get 

 a long shot. 



Nor was this the only unexpected rencontre of the 

 morning, for while cautiously reconnoitring the edge of the 

 jungle entered by the tiger, I put up within a few score 

 yards of the spot where he had disappeared from view, a 

 small herd of a dozen or fourteen wild buffalo, and brought 

 down, with both barrels fired into his shoulder, the master 

 bull, which, darting forward a few yards, fell with a mighty 

 crash in the bushes. Hastening along the covert, as the rest 

 of the herd noisily pushed their way through it, I gained the 

 end just as the herd having cleared it were on the point of 

 crossing a muddy creek at its extremity, and there I brought 

 down two more by close shots, but both cows, as unluckily 

 proved to be the case. It became quite clear, then, that the 

 tiger, fully aware of the presence of the buffaloes in the 

 jungle, in which he feared to attack them while together in 

 a body, had crouched down among the green rice, knowing 

 full well that the buffaloes would presently come out to graze 

 upon it, when an opportunity might be given him to strike 

 down a calf or cow feeding some distance apart from the 

 others ; and although he might be driven off the body of his 

 prey by the furious charge of the herd, his supper for that and 

 one or two succeeding nights would at least be secured. 



On another occasion, while out snipe-shooting some 

 fourteen miles from Cuttack, in the early rice of September, 

 when the fields were very wet, and there was a good deal of 

 water all over the country, I was charged open-mouthed by 

 a crocodile, which I succeeded in astonishing far more 

 effectually than he had hoped to do me, since, as luck would 

 have it, I had noticed his ugly tracks upon the soft mud, and 

 had exchanged ball for shot cartridges before following them. 

 Accordingly when he came at me, emitting a loud and harsh 

 hissing sound, I allowed him to approach within a couple of 

 paces, and then put a bullet down his throat, as he obligingly 

 held his mouth open, which caused him to turn quickly round 



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