TIGERS AND BUFFALOES. 



413 



mountains^ being farther from us, were not so impos- 

 inor. When we had come to the limit of the overseer'i^ 

 territory, another living ill the next district met us and 

 travelled with ns to his little house, where we dined 

 on venison while he entertained us with tiger-stories. 

 Only a few days before we arrived he had seen a 

 tiger in the road but little jnore than a rifle-shot from 

 his house; and, indeed, the deer that supplied the 

 venison we were eating had been shot in his own gar- 

 den, where it had evidently been chased by one of 

 those ferocious beasts. At the opziener's houses there 

 is a regular price for every thing furnished, and you 

 order what you please, thougb one can seldom feast 

 on venison, and must generally satisfy his hunger on 

 chickens and eggs, and, to receive both of these dif- 

 ferent articles, he needs only to order the latter. In the 

 houses of all officials of a higher rank than opaienei^ 

 it would be considered no less than an insult to 

 offer to pay for your lodging. Fi'om this place I 

 rode with the inspector a distance of twenty-five 

 miles to Rau, the chief village in this valley. We 

 had not gone far before we came into herds of buf 

 faloes, which are more than half-wild and said to be 

 very dangerous, but the natives that accompanied us 

 kept up a loud shoutiog, and the herd leaped to the 

 right and left into the jungle and tall grass, and al- 

 lowed us to pass on unmolested. The people here 

 sometimes shoot them, but consider it a most danger- 

 ous kind of sport, for they say that when one is 

 wounded, but not fatally, lie will cei-taiidy tm'n and 

 pursue the hunter, and, if he can overtake him, will 

 quickly gore him to death. 



