198 Wild Beasts 



wide sweep of some solitary bird of prey, is filled with the 

 voices of feathered flocks returning to their roosts. Fly- 

 ing foxes cross vistas still open to the view, and great 

 horned owls flit by on muffled wings. Those spectral shapes 

 which haunt such scenes appear amid the solemn gather- 

 ing of shadows — contrasts in shade indescribably altering 

 objects from what they are, waving boughs and rigid tree 

 trunks that start into strange relief in changing lights, 

 the distorted forms of animals indistinctly seen moving 

 stealthily about. Throughout those provinces where the 

 most famous tiger haunts are found, positions of advan- 

 tage, each beetling cliff and isolated hill, holds mementos 

 of the past which are now inexpressibly desolate ; the 

 former strongholds of Rajpiits that may, like the Bagh^l 

 clan, have claimed descent from a royal tiger, As we sit 

 aloft watching, a gleam of water, where when gorged the 

 beast will drink, is visible, and towards that also, each 

 with infinite precaution, and guided by senses of whose 

 range and delicacy of perception human beings cannot 

 conceive, the thirsty denizens of this wilderness take their 

 way. When we mark their timid and uncertain steps, and 

 see how often they hesitate and stop and turn aside, the 

 truth that "nature's peace" is only a form of words ex- 

 pressive of our own misconception and blindness reveals 

 itself most impressively. There is no peace. To hunt 

 and be hunted, to slay and be slain, that is the cycle of all 

 actual life. 



Here, while the solemn booming of the great rock 

 monkey sounds like a death knell, those tragedies take 

 place which only a hunter beholds. Every creature has 



