THE TIGER 229 



steep bank of wMch. there was a thick cover of jaman 

 bushes in which the tiger was sure to stop. I had just 

 before come through it, and found the place as full of 

 tracks as a rabbit-warren. Having a spare pad elephant 

 out that day, I sent her round to keep down the bottom 

 of the bank and mark, while I pushed my own elephant — 

 Futteh Eani ("Queen of Victory") — ^through the cover. 

 About the centre I came on the tiger, crouched like the 

 other, with his massive head rested on his forepaws, the 

 drawn-up hind-quarters and slightly switching tail showing 

 that he meant mischief. At the first shot, which struck 

 him on the point of the shoulder, he bounded out at me ; 

 but the left barrel caught him in the back before he had come 

 many yards and broke it, when he rolled right down to the 

 bottom of the bank, and fell, roaring horribly, right between 

 the fore-legs of the pad elephant. She was a new purchase 

 for forest work, called Moti Mala or " Pearl Necklace " 

 (such are the fantastic names given to elephants by their 

 Mahomedan keepers), and quite untried; but she stood 

 admirably this rather abrupt introduction to her game, 

 merely retreating a few steps and shaking her head at the 

 contortions of the tiger. There is no more striking incident 

 in tiger-shooting than to witness the fearful and impotent 

 rage of a tiger with a broken back. He cannot reach 

 beyond a short circle, but within that limit stones, trees, 

 and the very earth are seized and worried with fearful 

 savageness, and the wretched brute will horribly mangle 

 even his own limbs. It is too ghastly to look on long ; and, 

 though the agony is that of a monster who has caused so 

 much himself, a merciful bullet in the head should quickly 

 end the horrid scene. 



These were regular cattle-eating tigers, and perhaps 

 had not been molesting the monkeys. On another occa- 

 sion, however, I was much struck with the caution of the 

 monkeys under very trying circumstances. I had tracked 

 a man-eating tigress into a deep ravine near the village of 

 Pali in the Seoul district. She was not quite a confirmed 

 man-eater, but had killed nine or ten persons in the pre- 

 ceding few months. She had a cub of about six months 

 old with her, and it was when this cub was very yoving and 



