the village, where we mounted our elephants, and entered the forest. We found immense quantities of game, wild hogs, hog-deer, spotted deer, and the niel-ghie (literally, blue cow). I also saw here, for the first time, the junglefowl, or wild poultry, in appearance something between the game-cock and bantam. We, however, strictly abstained from firing, reserving our whole battery for the nobler game, the tiger. It was perhaps fortunate we did not find one in the thick part of the forest, the trees being so close set, and so interwoven with thorns and parasite plants, that the elephants were often obliged to clear themselves a passage by their own pioneering exertions. It is curious, on these occasions, to see the enormous trees these animals will overthrow. On a word from the Mahout, they place their foreheads against the obnoxious plant, twisting their trunks round it, and gradually bending it towards the ground until they can place a foot upon it-this done, down comes the tree with crashing stem and upturned roots. The elephant must be well educated to accomplish this duty in a gentlemanlike manner, that is, without roaring sulkily, or shaking his master by too violent exertions.

On clearing the wood we entered an open space of marshy grass, not 3 feet high: a large herd of cattle were feeding there, and the herdsman was sitting, singing, under a bush-when, just as the former began to move before us, up sprung the very tiger to whom our visit was intended, and cantered off across a bare plain, dotted with small patches of bush-jungle. He took to the open country in a style which would have more become a fox than a tiger, who is expected by his pursuers to fight, and not to run; and, as he was flushed on the flank of the line, only one bullet was fired at him ere he cleared the thick grass. He was unhurt, and we pursued him at full speed. Twice he threw us out by stopping short in small strips of jungle, and then heading back after we had passed; and he had given us a very fast burst of about 2 miles, when Colonel Arnold, who led the field, at last reached him by a capital shot, his elephant being in full career.

Elephant charging Tiger. London Fab by John Murray, 1858

As soon as he felt himself wounded, the tiger crept into a close thicket of trees and bushes, and crouched. The two leading sportsmen overran the spot where he lay, and as I came up I saw him through an aperture rising to attempt a charge. My mahout had just before, in the heat of the chase, dropped his ankoos,* which I had refused to allow him to recover; and the elephant, being notoriously savage, and further irritated by the goading he had undergone, became, consequently, 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 in the kawas,† was thrown out, and one of my guns went overboard. The struggles of my elephant to crush his still resisting foe, who had fixed one paw on his eye, were so energetic, that I was obliged to hold on with all my strength, to keep myself in the howdah. The second barrel, too, of the gun, which I still retained in my hand, went off in the scuffle, the ball passing close to the mahout's ear, whose situation, poor fellow, was anything 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 was a very fine female, with the most beautiful skin I ever saw.

My brute got a severe scratch over the eye, and his ears were a good deal clawed. It grieves me to convict so sage an animal as the elephant of that purely human vice, inconsistency; yet the case is flagrant; for-if the reader recollects the last time I was out, he ran away at the charge of the tiger-an act which might, however, be attributed to the influence of bad example shown him by his brethren. The mahout escaped, most fortunately, without injury. This practice of charging is, in an elephant, almost as bad a fault as the other extreme; the more so, that these animals usually follow up the kneeling position by rolling over *Iron goad to drive the elephant.

Hind seat in the howdah.

80

A NIGHT ADVENTURE.

CHAP. III.

upon their side, in order to crush their foe by their weight; in which case, the sportsman is exposed to the triple casualties of a bad fall, being shot by his own guns, and getting within the clutches of the tiger. The courage of a well-trained elephant is passive; and I have heard an experienced sportsman say that this kind of furious attack, and the more common precipitate flight, proceed from the same source, fear. This I believe to be true; more particularly since the "Immortal William" (doubtless thinking of anything but elephants) says, "to be furious is to be frighted out of fear.”

In spite of the almost intolerable rays of the sun, the intenseness of which made my brain swim, we continued to beat for the male tiger, whom we knew to be in the surrounding jungle, and from whom we augured a more determined resistance than that which we experienced from the retiring qualities of his better half. We toiled in vain. I shot, however, a fine spotted deer, and a few more were

bagged before we reached our gigs.

The party dined together with great hilarity at the tents of a gentleman of the civil service, who had been out with us, where we learnt that an Italian traveller, who called himself Count Vidua, had arrived at Hurdwar, and that Colonel Stevenson had promised to show him a tigerhunt.

I retired to my tent this evening pretty well knocked up; and during the night had an adventure, which might have terminated with more loss to myself had I slept sounder. My bed, a low charpoy,* was in one corner of the tent, close to a door, and I woke several times from a feverish doze, fancying I heard something moving in my tent; but could discover nothing, though a cheraug, or little Indian lamp, was burning on the table. I therefore again wooed the balmy power, and slept. At length, just as "the iron tongue of midnight had told twelve" (for I had looked at my watch five minutes before, and replaced it under my pillow), I was awakened by a rustling sound * Literally, "four feet.”