154 TWO YEARS IN" THE JUNGLE. 



poison, and pitfalls, the man-eaters still devour over eight hundred 

 human beings in India every year. 



The tiger inhabits all India from the Himalayas to Cape Com- 

 orin, and is hunted in three different ways. 



The first, the best, and most interesting plan, is howdah-shoot- 

 ing. In this, the hunter is perched on an elephant's back, high up 

 out of harm's way, in a comfortable square box called a howdah, with 

 his weapons and ammunition placed conveniently around him. Of 

 course the elephant is managed by a mahout, who sits astride his 

 neck with an iron goad in his hand, a very exposed position, in 

 fact. When it is possible, a large number of elephants are mus- 

 tered for the hunt, to assist in stirring up the tigers. Now and 

 then a grand party is made up of four or five English sportsmen, 

 and twenty or thirty elephants ; and perhaps five or six tigers and 

 much other game may be killed in a week. But this is a very ex- 

 pensive method, and cannot be practised except by the wealthy or 

 the influential few. This is an eminently safe method, too, the 

 greatest danger attending it being the running away of one's ele- 

 phant and the wi'eck of the howdah. Ladies often attend hunts of 

 this kind, which tends to place this once noble sport upon a level 

 with lawn tennis and badminton. 



Tiger bunting with elephants is most extensively practiced in 

 Central India where the jungle is in low, scrubby patches with bare 

 ground between, and in the Terai, a wide stretch of grassy half- 

 forest skirting the base of the Himalayas. In Southern India there 

 is little chance to employ elephants in this way, because of the wide 

 tracts of dense jungle * and forest in which no tiger can be effect- 

 ually marked down and "flushed." Elephants can be used to 

 great advantage, however, in following up a wounded tiger, a pur- 

 suit too dangerous for even the most reckless sportsman to prose- 

 cute safely on foot. 



The second and most general plan of tiger hunting, is called 

 •' machan-shooting." A machan is a platform of poles, fifteen to 

 twenty feet high, erected in the daytime near a recently killed 

 bvillock, a live bait, or a pool of water. Usually it is placed in the 

 top of the tree nearest the spot or object the tiger is expected to 

 visit. 



In Central India where the jungles can be beaten for tigers, the 



* In the East Indies the term " jungle " is applied to all kinds of arboreal 

 growth lying in large tracts, whether it be composed of heavy forest, low 

 brush-wood, or a scattering growth of scrubby trees in tall grass. 



