THE TIGER 223 



burnt in the jungles, and a hot sun has contracted the supply 

 of water to the neighbourhood of the great rivers, that 

 regular tiger-hunting can be commenced with a fair prospect 

 of success. At this season, having discovered a tract 

 where tigers are reported, a good central place should be 

 selected for a camp, in the deep shade of some mango 

 grove near a village, or under the still more grateful canopy 

 of some spreading banyan tree. The graciousness of 

 nature in firrnishing such plentiful shade at this arid season 

 cannot but be admired. It is just at the time when all 

 nature begins to quiver in the fierce sun and burning blasts 

 of April that the banyan and peepul figs and the ever- 

 present mango begin to throw out a fresh crop of leaves, 

 those of the first tree being then moreover charged with 

 a thick milky juice that forms an impenetrable non-con- 

 ductor to the sun's rays. 



Riding up to his camp, pitched in the cool shadowy 

 depths of some grove hke this, the sportsman will probably 

 find assembled the village headman, with a small train of 

 cultivators and cowherds, waiting to receive him with some 

 simple ofiering — a pot of milk, or a bunch of plantains from 

 his garden. If he is welcome, tales will not be wanting of 

 the neighbouring tigers — ^how Ram Singh's cow was taken 

 out of the herd a few days before ; or Bhyron, the village 

 watch, going on an errand, went down for a drink to the 

 river, and there came on a tigress with her cubs bathing by 

 its brink. That youth himself wiU chime in, and graphi- 

 cally describe how he took to a tree and was kept there all 

 night — the same being probably a euphemism for a night 

 passed with some boon companions at a neighbouring 

 grog-shop. The usual haimts of the tiger will be described ; 

 and the size of his footprints and width of his head be 

 drawn to a greatly exaggerated scale. The shikari of the 

 neighbourhood will be present, or can be sent for^ — a long 

 gaunt figure, clad in a ragged shirt of Mhowa green, with 

 a dingy turban twisted round his shaggy locks, and fur- 

 nished with the usual long small-bored matchlock, with 

 its bulky powder-flask of bison horn, and smaller supply 

 of fine priming powder kept carefully in a horn of the 

 gazelle. Rupees, or a prospect of them, will be wanted 



