COLONEL nightingale's LETTER. 21 S 
frantic signs to a marker, when out bounded a fine tiger in 
front of me and was off before I could get hold of my gun. I 
was now called to come back, so I pulled up and listened, and 
hearing my dogs Toby and Crib barking, moved the elephant 
to the spot. It turned out afterwards that the reason for all 
the clamour on the part of the markers was that I had inter- 
cepted no less than five tigers, they having devoured my 
buffalo, and amongst them was the great man-eater called by 
the villagers the *Panura bhag.' On coming up to my dogs, 
I could not see what they were at, till suddenly my man 
pointed to a tiger about twelve feet from the ground in the 
fork of a tree ; never expecting him to be up there, I might 
have gone under him without seeing him. Of course in such 
a position he had no chance so I put a ball through his heart 
and giving him one under the ear to prevent revivals 1 left 
him hanging, and chulled off the elephant to where I heard 
loud shouts from the markers above. After going about 
seven hundred yards as hard as we could lick, a tigress 
suddenly rushed out of some thick bushes in front of the 
huttie and went off at full speed ; I took a bang at her with 
the right barrel of the Kennedy and dropped her stone dead 
with a bullet through the heart ; she never even roared. 
The mahout declared she had gone on but I felt I had killed, 
and there she was on her back. At this crisis I heard more 
shouts so started off in their direction leaving the tigress 
as she lay, and after going nearly half a mile I came to 
where another tigress not quite full grown was growling at 
Toby. The mahout pointed her out to me as she sat looking 
towards me and I dropped her dead with a ball from the 
double. I now began to think I had got amongst a sounder 
of tigers^ and asked if any more were visible ? Oh, yes, was 
