THE SOTAZ TIGER OF BENGAL. 35 



ground hut, making thatch, and had evidently been 

 whisked off by one fell swoop of the tiger's paw, for 

 no marks of the teeth could be discovered. A 

 number of people were seated close beside her, talk- 

 ing loudly ; but this only verifies what I have heard 

 about man-eating tigers, that they rather take 

 advantage than otherwise of a noise to secure their 

 prey; and this one, a tigress, had a decided partiality 

 for human flesh, for she had carried off another 

 woman a year before, and the townspeople attested 

 that she cleared the stockade, nine feet high, with 

 the woman in her mouth. In the present instance 

 she had dragged her prey about fifty yards, but 

 whenever the people discovered what had happened 

 they rushed from their houses with torches, and 

 shouting drove her off. When we arrived there were 

 fifty men, all armed with spears and guns, and many 

 carried torches, and fires had been lit in every 

 direction, to frighten the brute away. The scene 

 was a most exciting and effective picture ; we had 

 the body removed, and beat the thickets, but could 

 discover no trace of the tigress. The woman was 

 buried the same night, in accordance with the Bur- 

 mese custom, followed in all cases of persons killed 

 by tigers. On the following morning we found the 

 tracks of the animal clearly imprinted on fresh bricks 

 laid out to dry, and its sex indicated by the foot- 

 prints of her cub." 



The Eev. Mr. Mason, in his work on " Tenasserim," 



