6o 
A CHANCE OF A TIGER. 
companion who knew the language and the district. The 
scenery was very fine, the mountains, nearly all of them 
volcanic, rise directly from the sea level and have a very 
grand and imposing effect. At one place, the muddy path 
along which we travelled, with high grass on each side 
and occasional patches of forest, was so beaten down with 
tiger tracks that it looked as if some one had been driving 
them like a flock of sheep to the market, and as I was most 
anxious to bag a Javanese tiger, we had a machan (platform) 
built commanding the most frequented of these tracks, and 
I sat up all one beautiful moonshiny night, but nothing came 
of it, and the only tiger I saw in these parts was lying out 
on rather a bare spot surrounded with high grass and well 
situated for a stalk ; my guide made signs as if asking me 
whether 1 would shoot it; I replied "why certainly" as plain 
as I could by signs, so he beckoned me to dismount and 
follow him ; we crept away through the grass, I all the time 
fancying he was bringing me round for a shot, at last I saw 
that he was taking me right away in a contrary direction. - I 
then seized him by the scrufT of his neck and made signs that 
we must go back and shoot the tiger ; but the tiger settled 
the question by quietly walking into the jungle close at 
hand. 
When I returned to the bungalow I had the man 
questioned as to whether he intended to take me up to the 
tiger. "What!" said he^ do you suppose I was going to 
let the gendeman shoot at the tiger ? Why, if the tiger had 
killed him, what would have become of me?" One evening 
I made a very good stalk and shot a doe muntjack ; I sent 
my guide with it to where the ponies were posted, and while 
waiting for his return I saw a peacock in grand plumage fly 
