FAREWELL VISITS 299 
he stood erect over his kill, to fall a few feet from it 
just in the moment of the proud assertion of his 
strength. 
From Bijrani we went to Améngarh, where also 
there were tigers; but they, too, would have none 
of our baits, nor should we have seen more than 
their tracks had they not killed a stray buffalo from 
the village. The victim lay on the sand of a deep 
watercourse ; the dense forest came to the edge of 
the perpendicular banks, here cut into fantastic 
ridges by the action of the rains. On one of these, 
scarce three feet wide, was a bare tree that overlooked 
both the kill and the ravines below on either side, 
and here I took an unstable seat in the sunlight, 
intending that the tiger should come along the 
watercourse and be seen before he could notice this 
very evident ambush; but it fell out otherwise. 
The buffalo was covered with feeding vultures, and 
so torn and defiled that no clean tiger would touch 
it, and the scent from these offensive birds was so 
strong as to be hardly supportable ; what interest 
there was consisted in watching the peevishness of 
these fowls, and their brutal and unprovoked attacks 
on each other, till suddenly a crow uttered the 
danger-cry, and the obscene crowd flapped heavily 
away in every direction. No tiger could be observed 
in the ravines, where first my glances were directed, 
but, looking nearer home, he was seen standing on 
the narrow ridge, contemplating with savage earnest- 
ness the ruins of his repast ; his head was sunk low 
between his shoulders, and from time to time he 
jerked it forward as if gulping down his wrath. He 
detected something unusual in the surroundings 
