246 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



these unfavourable circumstances, working atead and 

 securing by his plausible tongue a monopoly of information 

 in wMcb he was well seconded by the conduct of our rivals 

 in harassing the people in the matter of provisions, and 

 thrashing them all round if a tiger was not found for them 

 when they arrived. On one occasion I reached their 

 ground just as their last camel was moving ofE to a new 

 camp. They had stayed here a week trying in vain to 

 extort help in finding a couple of tigers whose tracks they 

 had seen. The tigers were aU the time within half a mile 

 of their tents, and before ten o'clock that day I had them 

 both padded. During a whole month I beheve they only 

 succeeded in getting one tiger, and that by potting it from 

 a tree at night. 



I spent nearly a week of this time in the destruction 

 of a famous man-eater, which had completely closed 

 several roads, and was estimated to have devoured over 

 a hundred human beings. One of these roads was the 

 main outlet from the Betiil teak forests towards the railway 

 then under construction in the Narbada valley ; and the 

 work of the sleeper-contractors was completely at a stand- 

 still owing to the ravages of this brute. He occupied 

 regularly a large triangle of country between the rivers 

 M6ran and Ganjal ; occasionally making a tour of destruc- 

 tion much further to the east and west ; and striking terror 

 into a breadth of not less than thirty to forty miles. It 

 was therefore supposed that the devastation was caused 

 by more than one animal ; and we thought we had disposed 

 of one of these early in April, when we killed a very cvmning 

 old tiger of evil repute after several days' severe hunting. 

 But I am now certain that the brute I destroyed subse- 

 quently was the real malefactor even there, as kiUing again 

 commenced after we had left, and all loss to human life 

 did not cease till the day I finally disposed of him. 



He had not been heard of for a week or two when I 

 came into his country, and pitched my camp in a splendid 

 mango grove near the large village of Lokartalae, on the 

 Moran river. Here I was again laid up through over-using 

 my sprained tendon ; but a better place in which to pass 

 the long hot days of forced inactivity could not have been 



