338 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



and on the bank I swore in American. Everybody 

 shoved and pushed and beat at the great bulk, and 

 the great bulk rolled steadily on. We might as well 

 have tried to budge Fifth Avenue Hotel. He reached 

 the bank, he crushed it beneath him, and, like a sus- 

 pension bridge, splashed into the water. Even then 

 we who watched him thought he would stick fast 

 between the boat and the bank, that the hawser would 

 hold him. But he sank like a submarine, and we stood 

 gaping at the muddy water and saw him no more." 



A thrilling story of an adventure with a tiger is told 

 by Colonel E. Maude, an Indian Mutiny veteran, in 

 his reminiscences of India l : " While at the hills I 

 met Captain Elliot, the A.D.C. of his Excellency the 

 Governor of Bombay, a very keen though reckless 

 sportsman, who had a miraculous escape from literally 

 the very jaws of a tiger when out shooting with his 

 friend Captain Rice (who saved his life), as graphically 

 related in the latter's book on 'Tiger- shooting in India.' 



Elliot told me the story. He said that he had 

 wounded a tiger, and wishing to follow up the ' pugs,' 

 descended from his perch on a tree a most risky and 

 highly dangerous action and was looking for the traces 

 of blood when suddenly the tiger, with a tremendous 

 roar, sprang upon him from higher ground. Instinc- 

 tively he threw up his rifle for protection, which provi- 

 dentially saved his head, and the animal, seizing him 

 by the arm, carried him off as a cat would a mouse ! 

 Captain Rice, who was a man of great nerve, calmly 

 levelled his gun, but was at first unable to fire, Elliot's 

 head being in the way ; but, seeing it droop, he fired, 

 and by a splendid shot killed the tiger, and found 

 1 See Bibliography, 29. 



