THE TIGEE 249 



victim approached ; how the spirits of all his victims rode 

 with him on his head, warning him of every danger, and 

 guiding him to the fatal ambush where a trg,veller would 

 shortly pass. All the best shikaris of the country-side 

 were collected in my camp ; and the landholders and many 

 of the people besieged my tent morning and evening. The 

 infant of a woman who had been carried away while drawing 

 water at a well was brought and held up before me ; and 

 every offer of assistance in destroying the monster was 

 made. No useful help was; however, to be expected from 

 a terror-stricken population like this. They lived in 

 barricaded houses; and only stirred out when necessity 

 compelled in large bodies, covered by armed men, and 

 beating drums and shouting as they passed along the 

 roads. Many villages had been utterly deserted; and 

 the coimtry was evidently being slowly depopulated by 

 this single animal. So far as I could learn, he had been 

 IdlHng alone for about a year — another tiger who had 

 formerly assisted him in his fell occupation having been 

 shot the previous hot weather. Betul has always been 

 unusually favoured with man-eaters, the cause apparently 

 being the great number of cattle that come for a limited 

 season to graze in that country, and a scarcity of other prey 

 at the time when they are absent, combined with the un- 

 usually convenient cover for tigers existing alongside most 

 of the roads. The man-eaters of the Central Provinces 

 rarely confine themselves solely to human food, though some 

 have almost done so to my own knowledge. Various circum- 

 stances may lead a tiger to prey on man; anything, in 

 fact, that incapacitates him from kilUng other game more 

 difficult to procure. A tiger who has got very fat and 

 heavy, or very old, or who has been disabled by a wound, 

 or a tigress who has had to bring up young cubs where 

 other game is scarce — all these take naturally to man, who 

 is the easiest animal of all to kill, as soon as failure with 

 other prey brings on the pangs of hunger; and once a 

 tiger has found out how easy it is to overcome the lord 

 of creation, and how good he is to eat, he is apt to stick 

 to him, and, if a tigress, to bring up her progeny in the same 

 line of business. The greater prevalence of man-eaters 



