AMONG THE TIGERS OF INDIA. 
Why is it that in shooting—and especially in 
tiger-shooting—some men may fag and toil day 
after day without any reward, while others who 
take infinitely less trouble have greatness 
thrust upon them, and invariably meet with 
the luck of the Prince of Darkness himself? 
writes a correspondent of the As/an. Itakea 
personal interest in the solution of this riddle, 
for though, in shooting trips on the Nilgiris, | 
have spared no pains, I have not been as lucky 
with the hill tigers as I deserved to be. I be- 
lieve myself that my iil-success, and that of 
others, is in a great measure due, not to a 
scarcity of tigers, but to their extreme wariness. 
On the plains in the hot season you can forcea 
tiger to meet you; but upon the cool Blue 
Mountains there is abundance of water and 
shade throughout the year, and Stripes is mas- 
ter ofthe situation. But making due allowance 
for this the fact remains, and an irritating fact 
it is, that I have been just too early or too late 
for several good things, and hence the tears 
which head this paper. 
A few years back I had arranged with a 
chum to meet him at his Zo¢e on a particular 
date, and Ainc tlle lachyrme for a fortnights’ 
trip. A dose of fever detained me, and I 
arrived at his bungalow two days late. There 
I found he had already started, and I posted 
on to our trysting-place at once. H was 
away from camp, and did not turn up till even- 
ing. He brought back with him a grand tiger, 
and my mortification on hearing how he 
bagged it may be better imagined than de- 
scribed. Our camp lay in the centre of a well- 
known tiger’s beat; in fact, we had selected 
the site in the hope of an interview. H 
told me that directly he arrived he had set to 
work to try and glean some news of the tiger, 
but on the first day had heard nothing. Early 
that morning he had left camp fora stalk, and 
had crossed the hills that lay between us and 
the B—— River, some four miles away. Just 
at the head of a steep ravine that runs up from 
the river he had taken up his post on the look- 
out for ibex and sambur; and had not been 
watching half an hour when he saw four tigers 


at the bottom of the ravine in a loving family 
group. They were coming up an old elephant 
track, which passed some sixty yards under 
H ’s post, and when they were immediately 
beneath him he opened fire, with the result that 
the leading and largest tiger collapsed at once. 
H—— had five more shots at the other three 
before they reached the cover of a large sholah, 
but could not say whether any of the bullets 
had taken effect. There was no blood on the 
track, and the sholah was far too extensive to. 
be explored single-handed, so he had returned 
with the skin of the tiger he had bagged. 
‘Had you been with me, old chap,” said H——, 
winding up his narrative, ‘‘we might have ac- 
counted for all four.” Whether I blessed or 
cursed the fate that had made me miss my ap- 
pointment by a couple of days I will not say. 
We determined to start the next morning 
with every available man, and to beat the 
sholah thoroughly, though neither of us had 
much hope of coming across the other tigers. 
We were up and ready by 4 A. M., and reached 
the ravine just as ‘‘morn broadened on the 
borders of the dark.” 
Sending all the men and the few dogs we 
had down to the bottom of the sholah into 
which the tiger had retreated, H took one 
side and I the other. Several sambur broke, 
but they were all hinds and brockets, and I 
reached the head of the sholah without having 
fired a shot. Here H joined me, and we 
had just begun to discuss a cigarette apiece, 
when the dogs gave tongue. Two minutes, 
afterwards Bill, the shikari, burst out of the 
sholah with the news that another tiger was. 
lying dead not twenty yards from the edge. 
We made our way through the jungle, and, 
stone dead in astream, we found a nearly full- 
grown tiger. A shell from H "Ss express 
had entered his stomach and had done fearful 
execution, but still the tiger had managed to 
travel full 600 yards, and even then, as we could 
see from the ground, had not given up the 
ghost without a struggle. I slapped H on 
the back; but I am bound to confess that a 
feeling of disappointment of having missed this. 





