322 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



from a mile or so tigher up the river came a deep, 

 tremendous roar, which had scarcely died away ere it 

 was answered from behind the camp by another, pitched 

 in a yet deeper tone, startling us from its suddenness and 

 proximity. All three were repeated at short intervals, as 

 the three tigers approached each other along the bottoms 

 of the deep, dry watercourses, between and above which 

 the camp had been pitched. As they drew together the 

 noises ceased for about a quarter of an hour; and I was 

 dozing off to sleep again, when suddenly arose the most 

 fearful din near to where the tigress had first sounded the 

 love-note to her rival lovers, a din hke the caterwauling 

 of midnight cats magnified a hundredfold. Intervals of 

 silence, broken by outbursts of this infernal shrieking and 

 moaning, disturbed our rest for the next hour, dying 

 away gradually as the tigers retired along the bed of the 

 river. In the morning I found aU the incidents of a 

 three- volume novel in fehne Kfe imprinted on the sand; 

 and marks of blood showed how genuine the combat part 

 of the performance had been. For the assurance of the 

 timid, I may as well say that I have never had my camp 

 actually invaded by a tiger, though constantly pitched, 

 with a slender following, and without any sort of precau- 

 tion, in the middle of their haunts. It strikes a stranger 

 to jungle ways a httle oddly, perhaps, to see a man in 

 the warm summer nights calrnly take his bed out a himdred 

 yards from the tents, he down under the canopy of heaven, 

 hsten, pipe in mouth, for half an hour to the noises of 

 wild animals, and then placidly fall asleep. He soon learns 

 to do the same himself. 



About the end of the rains, in September and October, 

 the red deer collect in large herds on the tops of the 

 plateaux ; and I have been told of assemblages of several 

 hundred head at that season. They are then beginning 

 to rut, and are very easy to get at, the Gonds and Bygas 

 killing great munbers with their axes, aided by their strong 

 tail dogs. The best heads are to be got from these people ; 

 and that figured opposite, which is a very typical one, 

 was killed either thus or by a tiger. I myself never got a 

 complete head with more than ten points, though I have 



