VII 
THE TIGER 
267 
among savage people. This consists in strong 
bellows worked by hand, the draught being sus¬ 
tained by continual relief of blowers, while the 
furnaces are constructed of clay, in the centre of 
which a small hole contains about a bushel of finely 
broken ore. Some powdered limestone was used 
as a flux, and the produce of a hard day’s work, with 
five or six men employed, was about 15 lbs. of iron 
of the finest quality. This was never actually in a 
fluid molten state, but it was reduced when at white 
heat to a soft spongy mass resembling half-melted 
wax; it was then alternately hammered and again 
subjected to a white heat, until it arrived at the 
required degree of purity. The fuel was charcoal 
prepared from some special wood. 
In the evening I pondered over the failure of 
Sheik Jhan, who declared that the tiger had taken 
him by surprise, as it had appeared while the beaters 
were so far distant that he could only just distinguish 
their voices. I came to the conclusion that this 
was the reason which explained the general 
escape of this wary animal, as it moved forward 
directly that the line of beaters entered the jungle, 
instead of advancing in the usual manner almost at 
the end of the beat. The sudden apparition of 
the tiger before it was expected would probably 
startle the gunner, who by firing in a hurry would 
in many instances entail a miss. Having well con¬ 
sidered the matter, I determined to make myself 
more comfortable on the morrow, by padding the 
mucharn with the quilted pad of the riding elephant, 
