342 COFFEE. 



day was the making of inquiries as to where this sport could be 

 had in perfection. Through friends in Delhi I finally secured the 

 necessary presentation to the Maharajah, or native ruler, of a 

 neighboring province, to whom I am indebted for this experi- 

 ence. 



In order to make it intelligible to your readers, I shall have to 

 preface it with a little account of the habits of tigers and the differ- 

 ent ways of hunting them. Illative hunters, or " Shikaras," recog- 

 nize, more or less, three kinds of tigers. One, the regular game- 

 killing tiger, " Lodhia hagh" as he is called, is retired in his 

 habits, living chiefly among the hills, retreating readily from man, 

 and altogether a very harmless animal. He is a light-made 

 beast, very active and enduring, and from this, as well as his shy- 

 ness, difficult to bring to bay. The " cattle-lifter " is usually an 

 older and heavier animal, called " Oontia l>agh,^^ from his faintly 

 striped coat resembling the color of a camel, quite fleshy, and in- 

 disposed to severe exertion. In the cool season he follows the 

 herds of cattle wherever they go to graze, or locates himself in 

 some strong cover close to the water in the neighborhood, where 

 the cattle are taken to drink and to graze on the greener herbage 

 found by the side of streams. The third is the regular " man- 

 eater," who, it appears, does not take naturally to this diet, but is 

 usually driven to make a beginning by stress of circumstances, 

 such as being an old tiger with worn-down teeth that require ten- 

 derer morsels than bullocks, or a tigress with cubs, that cannot 

 conveniently carry a bullock long distances to her lair. Both of 

 these causes frequently produce man-eaters, and once they have 

 acquired a taste for human flesh nothing else satisfies them. There 

 are also three ways of hunting them. One is to watch in a tree 

 near a dead carcass which has been killed during the day, and to 

 which the tiger usually returns after sundown to feed upon. An- 

 other way is to hunt them in their covers on a single elephant 

 trained for this purpose, and this, with experienced hunters, is 

 usually the most successful, but it is only undertaken during the 

 hot weather. A third way is to beat them out of their midday 

 retreat with a strong gang of natives, known as " beaters," sup- 

 plied with drums, fireworks, etc., the sportsmen themselves being 

 posted on elephants or other points of vantage at the likeliest 



