80 THE EOTAL TIGER OF BENGAL. 



her. She is not the one that ran away the other day 

 with him ; he had discarded her, and selected this one 

 from amongst the beaters, on account of her size. She 

 is very rough, and quite unfit for carrying a howdah, 

 hut in tiger-shooting steadiness is an invaluable 

 merit in an elephant, and one that covers a multi- 

 tude of sins. She stood beautifully when the tigress 

 charged, and seemed to be perfectly fearless and 

 indifferent, whilst many of the pad elephants had 

 bolted and were rushing about in all directions but 

 that of the tiger. I was on H.'s elephant, a very 

 fine animal, perfectly fearless, but a little unsteady ; 

 when the tigress charged, she snorted and kicked the 

 ground, and would have rushed at the animal had she 

 been allowed. We sent a pad back with the tigress, 

 and went on beating for another which had been 

 recently seen in the neighbourhood, but though we 

 looked hard we could not succeed. We tried several 

 most likely-looking places in the forest, and then 

 crossed the old bed of the Cowriallie, to a chur 

 covered with long grass, our shikarrie insisting that 

 it was a likely find, but we were again unfortunate, 

 for we found nothing in the grass but peacocks and 

 hog deer. We found the river running in a new 

 channel on the other side of the chur, a beautiful 

 clear stream with a sandy bottom. In crossing the 

 old bed of the river we came upon one or two quick- 

 sands, and in one of them ' Shamguttah ' again stuck 

 fast, but after wallowing, struggling, and rolling in 

 the ooze for some time she extricated herself. 



