250 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
ready for the entry of the future agriculturist, and 
the increase of population and the diminution of 
the forest area will make the residue doubly 
valuable in the future. 
An inspecting officer has no jurisdiction and no 
territorial charge, and such shooting as he obtains 
is given to him by the courtesy of those he visits. 
In this, as in many of my journeys, much hospitality 
of this description was shown. Mr. Percival had 
tigers driven up for us, and some were duly bagged ; 
one tigress in particular furnishing a lively scrap 
with the two inferior elephants at our disposal, for 
neither would face her, and both were bitten in the 
hind-quarters, when they pranced about so that the 
ground was littered with various impedimenta of 
the chase, and it was a marvel that Mr. Percival at 
last managed to kill her. On another occasion we 
had the satisfaction of seeing a heavy tiger charge 
across the open and fall dead at the foot of the 
“machan,” a most fascinating and invigorating 
spectacle. 
T was also out for three days after bison, tracking 
on foot with Gonds, the cheery aboriginals of this 
part of the Province; and I enjoyed the early start 
before dawn, and the day spent in their company, 
learning what they had to teach of woodcraft. I 
have never seen any European who could compete 
with the Indian tracker in the forest, and most of 
us, surfeited with civilization, cannot detect even 
what is pointed out; while as to a sense of direction, 
we have it not, and it is good sometimes to feel 
inferiority to a savage who will strike a bee-line for 
home through the pathless jungle, and arrive without 
