298 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
when I handed over charge of my duties, and 
received the cordial thanks of the Government of 
India for the work of thirty-five years. But that 
work was not quite completed. Six weeks we had 
promised ourselves to revisit some of the show-places 
of Central and Northern India, and to bid fare- 
well to the forests that had for so long been our 
home ; and after taking a last look at Agra, Delhi, 
and Udaipur, we joined our friend, Mr. R. Burns, 
LC.S., at Bankatwa in the Gonda district, where 
for ten days he placed his camp and all the best 
“ shikaris” of the district at our service. 
From thence we went to spend a last Christmas 
in canip at Bijrani, near the Ramnagar railway- 
station, where Mr. E. F. Winter, I.C.8., then Com- 
missioner of Kumaon, had pitched his camp. It 
was a spot I was intimately acquainted with, of 
broken hills and stony streams, and there a most 
pleasant time was passed. When we arrived, the 
tigers were roaring a welcome, and we did our best 
to charm them ; but there were counter-attractions 
in the shape of a versatile tigress who possessed 
superior claims, so that we had to be content with 
the good fortune of seeing much more than we killed, 
which is as it should be. One tiger there was who 
for long could not choose between the pleasures of 
the table and the invitation of the fair sex. Twice 
I watched him walking through the forest intent 
on the meal that lay below me, and twice he was 
recalled by the insistent cries of his mate. On the 
third evening he came again in the red glow of the 
setting winter sun, his hide shining like burnished 
copper as he stole through the yellow grass; then 
