TIGER-HUNTS. 
205 
mahout had just before, in the heat of the 
chase, dropped his ankee or goad, which I 
had refused to allow him to recover; and the 
elephant, being notoriously savage, and fur¬ 
ther irritated by the goading he had re¬ 
ceived, became perfectly unmanageable. He 
appeared to see the tiger as soon as myself; 
and I had only time to fire one shot, when 
he suddenly rushed with the greatest fury 
into the thicket, and, falling upon his knees, 
nailed the tiger with his tusks to the ground. 
Such was the violence of the shock that my 
servant, who sat behind, was thrown out, and 
one of the guns went overboard. The 
struggles of the elephant to crush his still- 
resisting foe, which had fixed one paw in 
his eye, were so energetic that I was forced 
to hold on with all my strength to keep my¬ 
self in the howdah. The second barrel of 
the gun which I still retained in my hand 
went oft* in the midst of the scufile, the 
hall passing close to the mahout’s ear, whose 
situation—poor fellow!—was any thing 
but enviable. As soon as my elephant was 
prevailed upon to leave the killing-part of 
the business to the sportsmen, they gave the 
roughly-used tiger the coup de grace. It 
