CHAPTER VIII 



TIGER-SHOOTING 



TIGER! TIGER! 



What of the hunting, hunter bold ? 



Brother, the watch was long and cold. 

 What of the quarry ye went to kill ? 



Brother, he crops in the jungle still. 

 Where is the power that made your pride ? 



Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side. 

 Where is the haste that ye hurry by? 



Brother, I go to my lair to die. 



RUDYARD KIPLING. 



IF one could look down upon India from a balloon^ 

 one would see that it was more or less divided 

 into three regions. The first is the Himalayas, of 

 which we have seen something ; the second is the 

 plains, where the last chapter left us ; the third is 

 the Deccan, a great three-sided table-land which covers 

 the southern half of India. It slopes upwards from 

 the plains, and its northern wall and buttresses stood 

 in former times as a vast barrier of mountain and 

 jungle between Northern and Southern India, greatly 

 increasing the difficulty of welding the whole into one 

 empire, until at length pierced by road and rail. The 

 eastern and western sides of the Deccan are known 

 as the Ghats, a name applied to a flight of steps up 



253 



