222 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



quiet population who did not want their tigers killed at all 

 on their terms, cursing and swearing at them, and perhaps 

 even expressing httle regret that a few of them had been 

 sacrificed to their bungling ardour. On the other hand, 

 a properly organised expedition, where the sportsman 

 provides his own supplies and his means of hunting the 

 tigers, is certain to meet with every co-operation from 

 the people. They will even crowd in to help in driving 

 the jungles, when they know they are to work for a good 

 sportsman and shot who will not unnecessarily risk their 

 lives. 



With luck and first-rate arrangements a few tigers may 

 be got in the cold weather. A good many persons wiU 

 remember a hunt in the month of January, 1861, when we 

 secured a royal tiger for the Governor-General of India, 

 on his first visit to the centre of his dominions, within a 

 mile or two of the cantonment of Jubbulpiir. I mounted 

 sentry over that beast for nearly a week, girding him in 

 a little hill with a belt of fires, and feeding him with nightly 

 kine, till half a hundred elephants, carrying the cream of 

 a vice-regal camp, swept him out into the plain, where he 

 fell riddled by a storm of bullets from several hundred 

 virgin rifles. He had the honour of being painted by a 

 Landseer, by the blaze of torcMight, imder the shadow of 

 the British standard; and my howdah bore witness for 

 many a day, in a bullet-hole through both sides of it, to the 

 accuracy of aim of some gallant member of the staff ! 



At this season tigers sometimes venture very close to 

 large towns, and even to the European stations. Several 

 tigers have been shot within the walls of the town and 

 station of Mandla, and in the " Pau " gardens round about ; 

 and at Seoni I formed one of a party who drove a large 

 tiger out of a tobacco field, within a stone' s-throw of a 

 considerable village, and shot him in the main street 

 thereof. There was nothing but fields of short green wheat 

 for many miles round about this place ; and the only reason 

 we could discover for so singular an appearance of a tiger 

 among the habitations of man was that he had received a 

 slight wound a few days before. 



But it is not until the greater part of the grass has been 



