226 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



with the end of his gun, his speech will be low and hurried 

 from suppressed excitement. There is httle chance, how- 

 ever, of coming on the brute himself at that early hour. 

 He is probably lying somewhere on an elevated place 

 commanding the approaches to his favourite lair, sunniug 

 himself in the soft morning light, and watching against 

 the approach of danger, until the growing heat about ten 

 o'clock shall have extinguished aU signs of movement in the 

 neighbourhood, when he will creep down into some shady 

 nook by the water, and, after a roll in the wet sand, proceed 

 to sleep ofi the effects of his midnight gorge. Sometimes, 

 however, if the sportsman be out early enough, he will 

 find, from the cries of animals, that the tiger is moving not 

 far ahead of him, and he may then by cutting him off even 

 obtain a shot. 



On one occasion I followed a tiger in the early morning 

 for several miles up the bed of a stream, entirely by the 

 demonstrations of the large Hamiman monkey,^ of which 

 there were numbers on the banks feeding on wild fruits. 

 As the tiger passed below them the monkeys fled to the 

 nearest trees, and, climbing to the highest branches, 

 shook them violently and poured forth a torrent of abuse ^ 

 that could be heard a mile away. Each group of them 

 continued to swear at him till he passed out of sight, and 

 they saw their friends further on take up the chorus in the 

 tops of their trees, when they calmly came down again and 

 began to stuff their cheeks full of berries as if nothing had 

 happened. The river took a long sweep a little further on, 

 and by cutting across the neck I managed to arrive very 

 much out of breath in front of the tiger, and crouched 

 behind the thick trunk of a Kawd tree till he should come 

 up. He came on in a long slouching walk, with his tail 

 tucked down, and looking exactly like the guilty mid- 

 night murderer he is. His misdeeds evidently sat heavily 

 on his conscience, for as he went he looked fearfully behind 

 him, and up at the monkeys in a beseeching sort of way 



1 Presbytis entellus. 



^ The voice of the monkeys on such occasions is quite different 

 from their ordinary cry. It is a hoarse barking roar something Uke 

 that of the tiger. 



