THE TIGEE 221 



escape to the tiger, and never get a charge at all. As a 

 rule, when on an elephant in fair ground, the object should 

 be to get the tiger to charge instead of letting him sneak 

 away, as the hunt is then ended in a short and exciting 

 encounter, while if let away it may be hours before he is 

 found again, if he ever is at all. 



The first difficulty is to get rehable information of the 

 presence of tigers in a particidar neighbourhood. A great 

 many reasons, besides the simple one to which it is 

 usually attributed, namely, that " they are cursed niggers," 

 combine to make the natives in most places very unwilUng 

 to give information about tigers. Firstly, it is hkely to 

 bring down a large encampment of " Sahibs " on their 

 village, which they, very justly in most cases, dislike. The 

 military officer who scorns to learn the rural language, and 

 his train of overbearing, swindling servants, who fully 

 carry out the principle that from him who hath not what 

 Kttle he hath shall be taken, away, and that without a price, 

 too, stink in the nostrils of the poor inhabitants of the 

 tracts where tigers are found. The tiger himself is, in fact, 

 far more endurable than those who encamp over against 

 them to make war upon him, and demand from them grain 

 and other suppUes which they have not, and carts, etc., to 

 carry the camp, which they want to use for other urgent 

 purposes. Then they fear that they will be made to beat 

 for the tiger— both those who are willing and those who 

 are not — ^with a considerable chance of getting kiUed, and 

 very little of being paid for their services. There are few 

 well-known resorts of tigers where some story of the sort 

 has not been handed down among the people. The first 

 essential towards getting sport is to concihate the willing 

 co-operation of the people, and make it plain to them that 

 your arrangements for supphes are such as to throw no 

 unbearable burden on a poor country, and that your method 

 of hunting is not one to lead to the constant risk of life. 

 Such, however, is the want of sympathy often engendered 

 in the naturally generous Englishman by the fact of his 

 becoming a member of the ruling caste in India, that 

 sportsmen will sometimes be heard on their return from 

 an unsuccessful expedition in which they had harried a 



