34 TEE ROTAL TIGER OF BENGAL. 



indifference with which the cowherds and villagers 

 often regard the formidable brute. Cow after cow 

 is attacked and killed, or occasionally recovered by 

 the herdsmen, who frighten the tiger off the body of 

 the stricken creature, by shouting or beating their 

 sticks on the ground ; and over and over again 

 I have been taken by these aheers (herdsmen) 

 up to the "kill" on foot (for they will often 

 refuse to mount an elephant), without the slightest 

 evidence of fear, and when the tiger is on foot, or 

 perhaps wounded and ready to charge, they will 

 stand near or form a line, and beat him out of 

 the jungle. Should he pass near one of them 

 he is pretty certain to strike him down, perhaps 

 inflict a dangerous wound, either with claws or 

 teeth ; but he is much less likely to do this if un- 

 wounded. 



Dr. J. Anderson, in his "Western Yunan Expedi- 

 tion, narrates the following incident, in reference to 

 a man-eater : — " While we were at dinner one 

 evening in Bhamo, a cry was raised that a tiger was 

 in the town, and we at once started with o\ir rifles, 

 and were met by a man who informed us that a 

 woman had been killed ; we hurried on, and in a 

 hollow, before a clump of bamboos, came upon the 

 body of the poor woman, over which her niece was 

 crying bitterly. The back of the skull was completely 

 smashed in, and part of the scalp was torn off. The 

 woman had been sitting in the low verandah of a 



