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LX LIBRI5

ERNEST ALAN VAN VLECK

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FOR THE PEOPLE

FOR EDVCATION

FOR SCIENCE

LIBRARY

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

OF

NATURAL HISTORY

DAYS AND NIGHTS

WITH

INDIAN BIG GAME

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

4

SAMinUK.

DAYS AND NIGHTS

WITH

INDIAN BIG GAME

BY

Major-General a. E. WARDROP

AUTHOR OF "modern PIG-STICKING "

WITH CHAPTERS BY

C. W. G. MORRIS, Esq.

OF GARSTEAD, BILLIGIRUNGUMS, MYSORE

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
AND WITH SKETCHES BY

Major J. H. NORTON

(l.ATE THE CARABINIERS)

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1923

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

TO

MY WIFE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAOE

Introductoiiy . . . . . A. E. Wardrop 1

CHAPTER H

Some Pre- War Tiger Shoots . . ,, 4

CHAPTER HI

Various Episodes in the Doon and

Terai Jungles .... „ 14

CHAPTER IV

A Central Province Shoot in 1921 . „ 22

CHAPTER V

A Shoot in an Indian State in 1921 „ 36

CHAPTER VI

A Chapter of Mistakes in 1920 . „ 56

CHAPTER VII

My First Tiger . . . . C. W. G. Morris 68

CHAPTER VIII

Various Game : my Brother gored by

A Bison ..... „ 82

vii

viii INDIAN BIG GAME

CHAPTER IX

Bear, Bison, Sambhuk, and Disappoint- p^oe

MENTs C. W. G, Morris 91

(continued)

CHAPTER X
Luck at last with Tiger ... „ 101

CHAPTER XI

My Record Bison and a Couple of

Tigers ..... ,, 113

CHAPTER XII

Married and a Run of Luck . . „ 133

CHAPTER XIII
Deer and Antelope . . . . A. E. Wardrop 150

CHAPTER XIV

Buffalo and some Regrets . . „ 157

CHAPTER XV

Bison, a few Bear, and Elephant . „ 168

CHAPTER XVI

Sitting up .... . „ 183

CHAPTER XVII

Various Notes ..... „ 202

Index . . . . . . . . . 207

ILLUSTRATIONS

Sambhur ........ Frontispiece

FACINO PAGE

" He was a fine specimen of a uoitlieni cold-weather iv^ev " . 18

Chital 21

In Kaslimir with the Wolseley car, 1920-21 .... 22
"Gorind was giving way to no fatalistic views " . • .31

'^ There were many really fine banyans " .... 89

" The services of a steady shrewd youth " .... 40
" Our camp was under two noble peepul trees whicli treacherously

shed their leaves " ....... 59

" One day I met a bear . . . and slew him" . . . . G7

" Instinctively I faced round "...... 104

"Jimmy" 108

My Record Bison 120

The Nelliampathy Tiger 123

'' Thick-set and beautifully marked " ..... 132

" Lying prone on a rock "....... 13-5

'' Wardrop Camp" in Kashmir, 1920 ..... 151

A. E. ^V. and Sambhur, 1920 156

'' We found the bull" 161

(1) "A wild buffalo grazed under my tree"; (2) "and 1 got

some photos at close range " . . . . . . 164

(1) " This was a really fine bull " (p. 161); (2) " The grand old

buffalo head " (p. 167) 167

The Peryar Lake 179

" He was moving at a steady walk "..... 181
(1) Dug-out canoe on the Peryar Lake (p. 180); (2) A. E. W.

and elephant tusks (p. 182) . . . . . .182

" A species of crow's nest " ....... 189

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

" All things being full of flaw, all things being
full of holes, the strength of all things is in short-
ness," quoth the great John Ridd, in 750 pages of
Lorna Doone.

We will try to follow his precepts if not his
example.

After a bison shoot in 1921 it was my good
fortune to be the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Charles
Morris, at their estate in the Billigirungums. I
was struck with their fine trophies and by Mr.
Morris's experiences, especially those relating to
shooting tiger on foot.

At my persuasion Mr. Morris has written
some of his experiences in this book. I offer him
my grateful thanks.

My own recollections have been drawn either
from diaries or from accounts written at the time
to friends.

These pages deal frankly with what a recent
writer calls " a stale line," recording " the delights
of Forest life, its beautiful surroundings and
adventurous incidents."

But we hope that they may be read and found
fresh when older and better pre-war books are

1 B

2 INDIAN BIG GAME

looked on by a young generation as no longer
applicable to post-war conditions.

In spite of the modern rifle, sport in India is
now very good. In the war no game was shot.
Since then there are considerably fewer Army
men shooting than before ; and it is permissible
to doubt whether our civilian brothers, engrossed
in ' reforms ' and all that they involve, will have
as much time as before for tours in their districts,
knowledge of their people, and the freedom of the
jungle.

Yet few will deny to the jungle, as well as to
a horse, its value in teaching a youngster (be he
civilian or soldier) self-reliance, a knowledge of
the language and of the country as well as of the
inhabitants, and various other virtues.

My own shooting experiences are small com-
pared with those of the great hunters of the past
and present day. Moreover, I have had largely
to record my own failures. I can only hope they
will teach beginners as much as they taught me.

In consequence I have made no attempt to
preach or deduce maxims except in the matter of
sitting up and one or two other important points.
But a commentary on reasons for failure or suc-
cess runs throughout the book.

For the natural history of the animals, the
methods of hunting them, and for advice in
general, reference must be made to the classical
Indian Big Game books, beginning with Sanderson
and Forsyth down to the latest Shikar Notes for
Novices by the Hon. Mr. Best.

This book is not a catalogue of animals shot.
Mr. Morris and I have tried to mention only

I INTRODUCTORY 3

incidents that would bring out some point of
interest, however small.

Various big game experiences of my own have
been published in Modern Pigstickings and do not
appear here.

This book owes much to my wife's criticism
and help.

I wish to express my gratitude to Major
J. H. Norton, artist and hunter of big game, for
his illustrations.

CHAPTER II

SOME PRE-WAR TIGER SHOOTS

" Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night.
What immortal hand or eye
Framed thy fearful symmetry ? "

I HAVE devoted considerable space in this book
to tiger. For, to my mind there is a romance
and a devilishness about a tiger possessed by no
other Indian animal. To meet and overcome
a tiger is probably the first great ambition of
every young big game hunter, and the scope
and variety of action of this fine beast so much
exceed that of other animals that I, for one,
could never tire of hunting him.

A chapter on pre-war shooting has been
included in order that the young sportsman may
realize what it was then, and how well that of the
present day compares with it, if a man goes the
right way to work.

My first introduction to tiger was in 1894.
I was then quartered at Secunderabad in the
Deccan, which I considered then, and do still con-
sider, to be one of the best sporting stations in
India. There was excellent tiger-shooting within
reach. Panther abounded ; and many a happy
Wednesday and Saturday did I have, riding out

CH. u SOME PRE-WAR TIGER SHOOTS 5

twenty or thirty miles, sitting up in the evening
and shooting snipe next day. Polo and racing
flourished. There was no pig-sticking, because
there was not then, nor apparently ever has been,
at Secunderabad any one with sufficient expert
knowledge to start a serious campaign against the
numerous pig that could undoubtedly be hunted
in that country.

My first year, except for trips after odd bear
and panther, was taken up in learning my work.
But in the following year, B. of the 1st Madras
Lancers, H. (R.F.A.), and I got leave for three
months.

The Deccan system in those days was for a
man to send out, in the early winter, shikaris
equipped with his visiting-cards, which had the
date on them, to be left with the head men of
villages. If the shikari came to a village where
there were either no cards, or cards of more than
a year old, he left a new card ; and the shooting
in the jungles of that village then belonged to his
master for the ensuing season.

A shooting area was thus reserved. Of course
the villages had to be contiguous or the system
would have been impracticable. The direction
in which shikaris were sent was settled by
arrangement between officers and messes at the
Club, and it was the usual etiquette that an
officer of a regiment should have the prior claim
to a jungle vacated by officers of his regiment.
There was no limit to the number of tiger that
might be shot.

Of course the considerable disadvantages in a
system of this nature are obvious. It has now

6 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

been changed for many years past. Only a
portion of the country is thrown open annually
to shooting, and the rest is strictly preserved.
Permission to shoot has to be obtained, and the
number of tiger that may be shot is limited.

Generally, in the Gunners we did not do badly.
But the halcyon days were gone when our pre-
decessors, the British Cavalry in particular, made
bags which make my mouth water to this moment.

There was a considerable bandobast to make ;
maps had to be obtained, routes and country
thought out, shikaris sent on in November with
cards and again in February, and all the supplies
and transport for a big shoot, miles from any
railway, arranged.

In all this lay quite half the pleasure of the
shoot, in anticipation.

On our first shoot our arrangements w^ere good
enough, but we trusted our shikaris and they let
us in badly ; one of them turned out to be a
drunkard and the other a liar. Consequently we
only got one tiger and various panther and bear.

The one tiger came out to me and gave an
easy shot. He weighed 480 lbs. and measured
9 feet. That was over the curves. In those days
we always measured over the curves, and I have
stuck to that system ever since. I know that peg
to peg is the universal method now adopted ; but
as I have never shot any approach to a record,
nor have ever sent any measurements for registra-
tion, my method affects no one but myself.

Neither our panther nor our bear gave us
much excitement. The bear we got climbing
among the rocky hills. We ate a joint from one

SOME PRE-WAR TIGER SHOOTS 7

out of curiosity, but did not like it. I shot two
panther, both good males, and one of them was a
particularly fine specimen.

I was on the edge of a nullah lined with
korindah bushes. The panther passed down the
bank below me unseen. A man ran up to me
and said the panther had halted in a bush in the
nullah a hundred yards further on. I ran there
and saw my friend, a dim shape in the bush
below me. Full of enthusiasm, I fired my rifle
without any aim into the brown of him. The
bullet went in at his ear. " That was a good
shot of yours," said H., " but I don't think you
are wise to fire at so small a mark as the head."

" Ah, well, the head shot is so deadly."

" H'm," said H.

Towards the end of our shoot, we had a tiger
kill in a valley in which were a pool of water and
many low bushes, but no trees. We had settled
to draw lots on each tiger kill. I won and accord-
ingly sat up. I recall this with regret. There is
no selfishness to equal the thoughtless selfishness
of youth. Poor H. sat up over the pool, in case
the tiger should go there. I sat in a bush on the
ground and could see H. round the corner, some
way off.

Before it was dusk I saw a panther come and
sit like a dog behind H., who, in his turn, was
industriously watching the water.

The tiger came after dark on to the kill, which
was close to my front. I hit him, and he made
a great noise rolling and roaring until the low
sides of the valley rang with the echoes ; then
he went off. We took the blood - tracks, next

8 INDIAN BIG GAME

morning, to a small isolated clump of rocks where
we lost them. We hunted among the rocks ; but
not, as I now think, nearly thoroughly enough,
for I believe a crawling search would have found
him dead.

Next year I went after bison. The following
one, F. and B. and I, all gunners, had a fine
shoot, getting 18 tiger (including 5 cubs unavoid-
ably shot), 6 panther, and 1 bear. F. was a first-
class organizer, shikari, and linguist.

We had the best lot of shikaris I have ever
seen — six of them, under a head man. Farced
Khan. The latter's was the directing spirit. He
was a well-educated man with bad nerves, and he
never went into a beat. We wondered how he
kept his prestige. The six men under him were
hard-bitten sons of Ishmael, good keen men, fit
to run a beat or to go on detached work. We
had our November and February reconnaissances.
The latter gave us detailed information of the
whereabouts of tiger, and to it much of our
success was due. " Time spent in reconnaissance
is seldom wasted," says the soldier's bible.

The quality of the beating and of the shikar
work was shown by the fact that only one tiger
was lost out of a beat, and that we had few
difficult shots. This last is one of the sure signs
of good beating. Galloping animals mean bad
work.

Of course with so many shikaris the handling
of machans, stops, and line was made easy. The
principle of putting out stops was that followed
by the good men I had with me in 1921. The
shikaris started the stops from the centre gun

11 SOME PRE-WAR TIGER SHOOTS 9

and spread out like a fan as quickly as possible
to the ends of the line of beaters. Two men at
least are wanted for this. If there is only one
man he must do one flank first and then the other ;
this means delay, and the tiger may hear the noise
and get away through the open flank. Stops
should always start from the centre. I have lost
more than one tiger through breaking this rule.

If the cover into which the tiger will take his
kill is known for certain, machans may well be
put up before the kill. In any case, if there is
time before there is a kill, guns and shikaris
should reconnoitre probable lines of guns and
stops as well as the country into which the tiger
would go if wounded. This is a considerable
help in following up.

It is hardly necessary to emphasize the import-
ance of silence in placing guns and stops.

A good but elaborate system of preparation of
ground, of stops, and of beating by watch and
with certain manoeuvres, has been described by
a recent writer. Friends of mine have worked
on his system and found it excellent. To my
mind it is too elaborate. Shikaris and beaters
who can work by time in varying formations
require to be highly trained ; and I do not think
that, moving camp frequently and working on a
large scale, it is practicable to prepare the beats
in the way of cutting paths, to any large extent.

We should have increased our bag, but had to
stop in one camp for ten days doing nothing
while I was recovering from a panther mauling.
I took a long shot at a big panther in a beat. He
fell but got up, and I missed with my left, and we

10 INDIAN BIG GAME

followed up into thick grass and bushes. We
had just decided to put in buffaloes first, and I
was disentangling my hat from a bough when we
were charged from a few paces ; I fired one barrel
from the hip and missed. The others had no
chance of firing. The panther took my left
shoulder in his mouth and with his hind claws
he held my thighs. One hand was damaged.
The charge knocked me over and we had a
scrimmage on the ground. I tried to kick him,
and never thought of my hunting knife : my rifle
had fallen wide. The others rushed in and the
panther dropped me and bolted, fired at by them
and I think missed, as he went. I hope he lived.

The shoulder wounds were fairly deep and did
not do well at first. Our syringe was broken
but F. made one out of a peacock's quill, and
with the aid of this, strong carbolic acid, and
running cold water, I was able to shoot in a
fortnight. The railway was, luckily, too far off.

Few of our tiger gave us any trouble. We
followed up three or four times. I used an 8 -bore
Paradox for this work. We never found our
first tiger ; there was no blood, and I doubt if he
was hit. This was as well, for on opening the
breech of the Paradox I found I had never loaded.
I did not tell my companions although their fire
should have been sufficient without mine. Three
reliable guns ought not to have any trouble
following up, whereas a single gun may be
temporarily put out of action through no fault
of his own.

We had three tiger in one beat. F. killed the
two males, and I knocked the tigress over, giving

n SOME PRE-WAR TIGER SHOOTS 11

her a severe wound high up in the shoulder,
which destroyed some of the vertebrae and left
a hole as big as a man's fist. We tracked that
beast all that day and found we were wrong ; we
tracked her on the following day, found she was
moving on ; and tracked her on the third day
into an awkward ravine, out of which she luckily
went of her own accord. B. then killed her,
trotting, with a beautiful long shot.

This was my tigress theoretically, because I
had fired first and we had never given her up.
B. refused to take her ; she was certainly his
in reality. The original wound, though severe,
was not a mortal one.

The only fair rule is that the tiger shall belong to
whosoever inflicts the first injury that would kill.
Even this rule does not do away with the luck
of the draw for place. In this shoot and in the
one before I had considerably more than my
share of shooting simply through this luck.
The only way to obviate this would be to draw
for the trophies, a proceeding unsatisfactory to
every one.

The tiger defeated us altogether, for he went
straight for the beaters at once ; and we would
not risk a repetition of this. He was a hot-
tempered beast whom we called " Shaitan," and
had killed a bear some feet up a tree one day.
He was shot next year after nearly pulling
one of the 4th Hussars out of a tree. It was
apparently a habit of his.

After one beat a big python was reported in a
rocky pool. We found him there, 18 feet long,
more python than pool. B. was a very powerful

12 INDIAN BIG GAME

man and an amateur blacksmith. He insisted
on seizing this creature to capture it ahve. The
python drew up a loop of itself, like a caterpillar,
and straightened out, sending B. flying; so we
then shot it.

I have written enough about this shoot.
Afterwards, for many years I spent all the hot
weathers pig-sticking. I had some fine short
tiger shoots in the Terai with Sir John Hewett,
and went after various odd tiger and panther,
sometimes with nothing to record and sometimes
with incidents mentioned elsewhere. For several
years in the rains I went after bison, as also
recorded in another chapter.

In 1912 N. and I did a pleasant two months'
shoot. We had choice of two places, one near to
civilization and one far off. We chose the former,
but we were wrong. If you want good sport go
far afield. The further you go the better, gener-
ally, will be your sport.

We got three tiger and a lot of bear. N.'s
tigress fell to a long trotting shot. She was a
vicious animal, who had killed one of our beaters
through no fault of his.

I was nearly driven crazy one day, when sitting
up, by the cicadas, who with their buzzing gave
me the worst headache I have ever had in my
life.

The bear were great fun, and N. one day had
to flee for his life with three of them howling in
hot pursuit.

I was wandering among the rocks one evening,
and climbed up a gully into a cave, which was
empty but had every sign of recent bear. So

SOME PRE-WAR TIGER SHOOTS 13

next day at noon I stalked up to the top of the
gully, and, looking over, saw a fat old lady sleep-
ing placidly. I shot her and two more full-sized
bear which rushed out.

We had a beat one day, and they came out in
coveys, of which we took due toll.

Another day we had some fun retrieving
one from a cave. They are delightful creatures,
bears, and one never takes them very seriously,
though my friend B. was once terribly mauled
about the face by one.

CHAPTER III

VARIOUS EPISODES IN THE BOON AND
TERAI JUNGLES

" Midst music of the pine trees
And the jungle's deep refrain,
The twin great rivers rise and flow
Towards the sunlit plain."

I WAS lucky enough to enjoy Sir John Hewett's
great hospitahty during part of three of the big
annual shoots that he held in these jungles.

These were some of the best days that I have
ever spent. The good sport, the experience of
beating with a long line of elephants through
these great forests and open grass "sots" with the
Himalayas for their background, the fine camps,
and the happy party, are recollections that will
not fade. These shoots were probably some of
the last that will ever be held on the grand scale
reminiscent of the great Nawabs of old. And
if, as an unimportant private individual, I may
hazard an opinion, I would say that they helped
enormously to keep up the prestige of the Govern-
ment with the People, who are denied the privilege
enjoyed by their political and lawyer brethren of
listening to wisdom in council.

As I hope that Sir John will one day be per-

14

CH HI THE BOON AND TERM JUNGLES 15

suaded to write an account of these shoots, I
refrain from describing them.

I got panther there, but never shot a tiger.
Many of the latter were bagged while I was out,
and I had at least three good chances, but I
missed every time. I never could shoot from a
howdah. I was firing with a -400 that had never
been fitted to me, and I think I always fired too
high. One tiger especially made me very sad. I
was ahead with two other guns as stops, and the
line beat vip to us through high grass. A fine
tiger came out to the gun on my right and was
missed. He crossed my front at easy range and
I missed with both barrels. He then turned
back, went for the line, sprang at Sir John's
elephant, and was dropped dead by him as he
sprang. A beautiful shot, but it did not console
me for my rotten shooting.

Once we had a curious proof of the erratic
course a high velocity bullet may take. We had
beaten for a tiger and failed to get him. I was
mounted that year on a stone-blind elephant,
and I never rode a safer or a stauncher animal.
Sir John did not care for people sitting up ; but
as he wanted me to get a tiger, he detailed me to
do so for this one. I got into the machan at
about 3 P.M. It was rather of the crow's-nest
type, in the lower branches of a big tree, and was
undoubtedly insufficiently screened at the sides.
At 4 P.M. the tiger came down the hillside opposite,
making the country ring with his yawning roars.
He did not take a straight course to the kill, but
slewed off about eighty yards to my left. When he
reached the foot of the hill he halted in the open

16 INDIAN BIG GAME

and stood left broadside on, head turned towards
and staring at me. I turned to stone. We
stayed like this for what seemed a long time : I
knew he suspected me and feared he would go. I
carefully lifted my rifle up, aimed at his shoulder
and fired. The tiger spoke to the shot and
galloped off.

I was using a double-barrelled -400 H.V.
rifle. Shikaris on an elephant came up, and we
tracked till dusk and again next morning, finding
plenty of blood but no tiger. I felt a fool that
evening at having to tell Sir John that I had
made such a mess of an easy shot. To cheer me
up, he said, " Oh, we shall come across him
again." I replied that I feared there was no
chance, and laid 30 to 1 against it. This bet Sir
John took.

Two days later A. of the 9th Hodson's Horse
shot this very tiger, a handsome male with the
two days' wound on him. No other tiger had been
wounded or lost, so there was no doubt as to this
animal's identity.

We traced the course of my bullet ; it was
marked throughout by clotted blood. This and
the entrance and exit holes showed clearly that
the tiger must have seen the movement of the
rifle and swung round on his haunches as I fired.
His near forearm, then, instead of being vertical
was horizontal and pointing at me. The bullet
struck the centre of the forearm, went through it,
ran up the inside of the arm until it met the chest,
ran round the chest between the ribs and the skin
and went out at the off shoulder, inflicting in all
its course only a slight flesh wound. The wound

Ill THE BOON AND TERM JUNGLES 17

admitted of no other explanation. With a low
velocity rifle this could never have happened ;
and I was tempted for a time to revert to the old
•577 and black powder.

The bagging of this tiger was a great relief to
me, and it was with real pleasure I paid the thirty
rupees of my bet.

At different times I had two delightful shoots
with my old friend C. : one in our borderland
and one in Nepal. Actual sport was on the whole
indifferent as the weather and local conditions
were unfavourable on both occasions.

In the Nepal shoot I was again put to sit up
for a tiger after a beat. A pair of tiger had killed
and dragged the tie-up. While we lunched before
beating, the pair came back and lunched also.
But we did not get them in the beat, so I was told
by my host to sit up. The kill had been dragged
to the top of a little rise in bamboo grass and
bush jungle. There were no trees, and we fixed
up a sort of scaffolding machan with two or three
upright bamboos ten feet high, safe enough but
too sketchy and cramped for an all-night sit, so
an elephant was to come for me at 10 p.m.

The beats had been late in the afternoon and
I only got posted shortly before dusk. Soon I
heard the heavy breathing of an animal climbing
the hill. This was the male tiger. He puffed
up the rise like an old gentleman short of breath,
and sat for half an hour in a thick patch on my
right where I could hear his every breath. He
then crossed my front and sat in another thick
patch about twenty yards away to the left front.
There was a full moon. The tiger had not as

C

18 INDIAN BIG GAME

yet shown himself. From the patch where he
was now halted a little game-track a couple of
feet wide with high grass on each side of it ran
down to the kill. The heavy breathing continued
for nearly half an hour ; then it ceased and a
silent form crept down the track, seeming to
fill it.

On reaching the kill, the tiger, who had
throughout evidently been suspicious of the
machan, stood with his forefeet on the kill at a
distance of some six yards from me with his
beautiful solemn head staring up in the full
moonlight, and his chest showing up very white.

After a long look he was satisfied and turned
to eat ; and I shot him through the back with the
•470. He gave no sound but galloped off.

I went home on the elephant. It was useless
to look in the moonlight. My wife and I retrieved
him early the following morning lying dead fifty
yards away. He was a particularly fine big
specimen of a northern cold weather tiger with a
throat ruff like that of a maned lion.

I have never sat so still for so long before, and
I could never have done so cross-legged. C. had
insisted on my taking a basket stool, which made
all the difference.

The certainty that this animal was close and
meant to come on to his kill, and the finale in the
bright moonlight made this an evening to be
remembered.

The details of the attack of this tiger when he
killed were clearly shown in the firm sand of the
nullah. The first strolling pug-marks, the halt
and pause when he saw the buffalo, the long steps

ill THE BOON AND TERM JUNGLES 19

first and the short ones later with outstretched
claws of the actual attack, were all visible.

After killing he must have carried the kill on
his shoulder, without a trace of it on the ground,
up a steep bank twenty feet high which involved
a distinct scramble for a man.

I also did a couple of trips alone on the borders
of the Terai, combining pig-sticking with shooting
on off days. I got no tiger on these trips, though
in one place at least I had only myself to blame.

My horses wanted a rest, so I took a week off
and went further than usual. There were several
fresh tracks about, but I got no kill at the begin-
ning. I was then fool enough to fire at jungle
fowl, only a couple of shots. But all fresh tiger
tracks then ceased.

I am convinced one ought never to fire gun
or rifle within three miles of tiger cover. Some
say it does not matter : I entirely disagree with
them, and my belief is confirmed by losing tiger
from shooting game on other occasions.

I have mentioned just now doing nothing at
the beginning, and my experience is that as a rule
on arrival at a place it takes four or five days
before all the kills are properly placed, the local
inhabitants trust one, and news begins to come
in — unless, and that is a big word, one has had
a really good outlying shikari on in advance.

On this trip when I lost tiger I shot a good
panther who had killed two of my tie-ups and had
never returned. We dug a hole in the river-bank
and I sat up over a live goat. Falling asleep, I
was awakened by the thud of the kill. I ought
to have shot the panther dead, for I was firing

20 INDIAN BIG GAME

with the 8 -bore at close range in good moonh'ght
over white sand. However, we put in buffaloes
next day and retrieved him dead. Old Kurera
had to climb hurriedly up a tree to get out of the
way of our stampeding charging buffaloes.

In 1920, while waiting to join C. on his Nepal
shoot, my wife and I were given permission,
through C.'s kindly offices, to shoot the private
preserves of the Maharajah of Kapurthala. These
preserves made a little paradise full of chital,
nilghai, and pig, with a few panther. There
were no tiger in it. We were sorry to leave this
charming and hospitable spot, where there was a
delightful bungalow, comfortably furnished, with
a large compound full of trees in which lived in-
numerable monkeys ; and we amused ourselves
often in the evenings watching simian family
life.

There were numbers of butterflies which with
their variety and brilliant colouring tempted us
both, my wife especially, to catch them.

Our amusements were varied, as besides the
shooting, we motored sometimes in a car which had
been put at our disposal ; and our two elephants
were an endless source of joy as we watched
their toilets and laughed over their idiosyncrasies.
They took us many a mile up the river, which
abounded with mugger, and my wife was never
tired of stalking these with a kodak and watching
me shoot them. I remember one which slipped
into the water after I had shot it dead, as I
thought, and it was afterwards picked up and
dragged many miles back to camp. When it
was cut open it proved to have at least thirty

4^

\!^:

^ *.'^V',<

r»'<^

i'lA

Ill THE BOON AND TERM JUNGLES 21

eggs inside it, all undamaged, and they filled a
large basket.

I feared at first we should get little sport, as
the local men did not help much, but one day a
gentleman from a neighbouring district (whom
we afterwards named " Jones " as we could not
pronounce his name) presented himself and
promised to show us everything. I gave him a
trial, and he certainly knew the ways of game,
and got me all the chances I could wish.

He was naturally not very popular with the
local shikaris whom he had displaced. He
amused us with his overbearing patronage of
manner, and his costume of khaki coat, jodhpur
trousers made of grey serge, black " pill-box "
forage cap, and a pair of patent leather dancing
pumps, in which he walked all day.

I shot three chital over 35 inches and then held
my hand.

Of panther I shot one, and let another walk
under my tree before I was ready, and I never
saw him again, though he worked up close in the
dusk, for I saw the bushes shaking.

A nice panther killed a goat one day and hid
it twelve feet up in the branches of a tree. I took
post in another tree and deservedly saw nothing,
while the panther doubtless watched from below
and laughed. The kill being high up, it was
certain that the panther's eyes would be looking
upwards, and my machan should therefore have
been on the ground in a bush or, better, in a hole.

CHAPTER IV

A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT IN 1921

" Agar Firdos beh rue zameenast " —
(' If there is a Paradise on earth ' — )

In the winter of 1920 my wife and I had a success-
ful motor tour of 3500 miles, driving ourselves
from Kashmir up to the Afghan Frontier and
thence through Northern and Central India, with-
out a chauffeur and with no involuntary stops
except two punctures and one tyre burst.

We finished our trip in February 1921 with
twenty-five miles of vmmetalled, and in parts
rocky, road to our block in the Central Provinces.

We were at some height. Our surroundings
and the climate were delightful. There was a
sting in the air at night. The season was an
early one, and throughout the first stages of our
road the mango blossom was beginning to show
in strength ; while in the jungle everywhere were
the signs of the dak : —

" Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam
Cover a hundred leagues and seem
To set the hills on fire."

And already there was a whiff of the glorious
never-to-be-forgotten, dry, burnt smell of a Central
Province hot weather jungle.

22

IN KASHMIR WITH THp: WOI SELEV CAR, 11)J0-21.

CHAP. IV A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT 23

We lived in a forest bungalow and at first had
poor sport, for the tiger had already left the hills
and gone into the valleys below, of which only one
at first belonged to us.

I wanted to feed the villagers and did some
amazingly bad shooting at nilghai, which abounded
there. After wounding one, I feared my little
rifle was too light, so after that I fired at them no
more.

One evening our small dog was chased by two
wolves right up to our feet as we were out for an
evening stroll. I could have shot them easily,
but for once had no rifle with me. The wolves
were certainly not stretching themselves and the
dog was not alarmed. It was a friendly affair,
and the second instance of such that I have seen
between dogs and wolves.

The spear grass was high and troublesome.
Luckily khaki is almost proof against this
grass. Gaiters are a necessity but bare legs are
better.

I was unable to do much for a week owing to
a bad foot. My bath was outside the bungalow
in a tent, and stepping to it one evening I felt
something curl on my leg and bite my big toe.
The creature dropped off : I ran to the light and
found two close punctured holes with a spot of
blood on each.

Within a minute of being bitten I tied a liga-
ture and cut deep into and round the toe with a
razor, and my wife and I rubbed in permangan-
ate at once. She gave me hot milk and put me
to bed. I had a big yawning attack and a feeling
of contraction in the throat as if some one were

24 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

gripping it. This passed off later, and I was fit
enough next day except for a lame foot.

As in nearly all cases of snake bite, the ex-
perience was an unsatisfactory one, as we never
found the snake, nor could we tell whether he
was fresh or had recently used his fangs. The
symptoms seemed to indicate a snake of the
Russel's viper type.

I missed a panther, while sitting up, with a
patent bullet from an old shot-gun, which I am
certain I should not have done with a rifle.

The first trophy of the trip was a tigress, which
stalked down to her kill at 4.30 p.m. I was in a
high tree and the kill lay on one of the open
plateaux that I love, sloping down from the
tigress's cover. She was in view from me for a
hundred yards, and it was interesting to see her
stalk up on the " bound " system from bush to
bush with a pause at each.

After that we moved to a lowland valley, but
before doing so we beat for a tigress which was
lying up in a nice overhanging wood on the side
of a river. The beat was an easy one, but the
local shikari insisted that the tigress would break
out to the flank up a little nullah that ran up
from the river through the wood, and he posted
us accordingly. Unfortunately the tigress, roaring
savagely after much beating, took a new line to
the end of the cover, up steep cliffs, and away
along the river. This was the more natural
line of retreat and we ought to have been there,
but I had trusted to the local knowledge in-
stead of going myself all over the ground as
soon as we began tying up.

IV A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT 25

Although no longer in our block, we were
allowed to continue tying up for this animal.
When we had been in our new quarters a few days
news reached us at midday that there had been a
kill there as well as one, of which we already knew,
only a mile from home.

We decided that I should beat for the former
and then join my wife and sit up for the latter.

A six mile jog-trot march brought me to our
old beat by 2.30 p.m. Beaters were to have been
ready on a kill occurring. Unluckily the men
were late and the beat did not start until 3.40 p.m.
This time I was in a good tree on the cliff at the
end of the beat. We put stopping cloth and
stops in our old nullah.

After some time the noise of the beaters died
out and I could see men running across the
stream. My tree commanded a beautiful pano-
ramic view of the blue rocky stream and endless
ridge and dale of thick tree-tops.

Presently a little Korku ran to me saying the
tigress was visible in a patch of cover in the beat,
and refused to move. I got down, made a detour
and ran with the little man to where the beaters
were up trees. We reached a tree with half-a-
dozen men, all pointing, festooned on it. The
Korku shinned up and I followed, only in time to
hear groans of " Ah, she's gone." I jumped down
and flew back round to the cliff, telling the Korku
to get hold of the shikari and have the beat
restarted.

After a long time this was done, but the line
was bad and the yelling only half-hearted. How-
ever, I sat still as a mouse. It was the only thing

26 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

to do. After a long time I heard a rustle, and then
to my delight the tigress stealthily climbed up
the cliff, and I dropped her dead at my tree.
This was a truculent animal, and I was glad to
have had no accidents to the men.

As it was now nearly 4.45 p.m., I handed over
money for the beaters, contrary to rule, and
started " all out " for the home tiger. But my
original guides being tired, I was given two out-
side men, who lost their way. We got entangled
in deep ravines and only reached home tired and
hungry at 9 p.m., having covered a good many
miles.

My wife had gone alone to sit up, and knowing
she had no rifle I hurried after her, taking a man
with a lantern. I soon knew there was no chance,
for the tiger was grumbling as we got to the
machan. My wife had had the light on him, and
she saw him, which was the only consolation.
He would have been an easy shot, and was
evidently a fine animal. It was the stupidity
of the guides that lost him. A hyaena came often,
but I slept mostly, cold and weary. However,
I was pleased at having helped to beat the tigress
up to my own machan, and at having then shot
her.

The little Korku got a good reward.

From now onwards I continued my shoot
alone, my wife having left for England. After
seeing her off from Bombay I rejoined my camp,
which had moved a few miles to the side of a
river. Behind the camp lay open fields with
sunken lanes bounded by hedges and real gates.
Blackbuck grazed all day, pig and deer held

IV A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT 27

carnival there by night. In the surrounding
jungles were good chital and sambhur.

In front of the camp was the village ; beyond it
the river, drying up fast into a succession of rock-
bound pools, ran through cliffs and past shelving
banks covered with sombre teak forest. The
mango and the dak were in full flower, while here
and there towering high were the graceful semal
trees giving their splash of colour ; " the Ceiba's
crimson pomp."

This was the most sporting place in which I
have ever been ; to my lasting sorrow I only had
ten days of it.

Tiger were numerous ; we got kills at once. I
sat up and lost two. In one case my machan
was too close to the cover, and in the other
a party of fishermen proceeded to fish all night
close to the kill.

After this we had one of my favourite kills on
sloping ground ; and Govind, one of the last
month's Korku allies, posted me well in a beauti-
fully made machan in a high tree. A sloping
plateau is good because the tiger looks down,
thinks he can see everywhere, and that all is clear.

The jungles round the camp were too extensive
to permit of beating.

Early in the afternoon a little red fox trotted
past within twenty yards, brush erect and never a
glance at the kill ; virtue personified, " oh, thief
of all the world." Shortly before dark back came
the little fox, a sneaking criminal now, and pro-
ceeded to eat. But it was an uneasy meal, with
conscience - stricken rushes to help digestion,
and in the last light of dusk he gave tongue

28 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

sharply several times and fled. A minute later a
tigress walked quietly from behind the tree and
I killed her.

At midnight a tiger came under my tree, but
thinking he was a sambhur I took no steps to be
quiet and discovered my mistake too late.

Three days later there was a kill by a big tiger,
probably my midnight friend, some two miles
from where I had shot the tigress.

I sat on the edge of the river looking up a
succession of beautiful blue rock-bound pools.
On my bank the heavy jungle skirted the river
for miles ; on the other bank was a patch of
jungle adjoining the river, thick opposite me but
running to a point half a mile up. The track to
my machan passed through this patch and across
the river. The kill was where a dry nullah ran
down from the low hills on my left into the river.

The jungles were beautiful ; the foliage was
generally golden brown interspersed with patches
of green and red. I sat in one of four trees of the
" flame of the forest," a flaming mass of brightest
crimson, so bright that my eyes ached with the
sight until the sun sank.

I was some sixty yards from the kill ; the
powerful electric light was fitted and all was well,
though I viewed with mistrust a leafy bush close
to the kill, which I dared not touch, and into which
I feared the tiger might drag it.

There was no moon. At 8 p.m. I heard my
friend the little red fox giving tongue sharp and
loud half a mile away.

" It's the tiger, I tell you it's the tiger," he
shrilled.

A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT 29

" All right, little friend, then I'll expect him
at 8.15."

At 8.22 came the quiet gurgling sigh of a tiger
wanting his food. This was repeated at 8.30, and
at 8.50 came the noise of rending of flesh and
cracking of bones. Surely no bite to fisherman
was half so sweet as this.

I let the tiger eat for five minutes and then
turned on the light. There was not a sign of kill
or tiger. I switched the light everywhere and
suddenly got a momentary full-length view of
the tiger for a second when he moved into the
bushes.

Again he stepped out and I could see his neck
and off shoulder. I fired. The tiger spoke to the
shot and dashed off to the opposite bank. Then
I heard no more.

At 4 A.M. I heard a tiger singing his grand
" Aa-oonh, aa-oonh ! " This call has a solemn
vibrating note as if sounded from the depth of
some great organ pipe. When the call came
opposite me there were two savage roars " Agh-
agh," and the calling animal wandered discon-
solately off.

" This must be the tigress visiting her stricken
mate." She came back calling at 5 a.m. Again
she met the same savage roars, after which she
passed up the river, returned on my bank and took
post on the high ground above me, and remained
calling pathetically until 7.30 a.m.

At 6 A.M. I stood up and was met by similar
roars.

I was anxious about my men, who were due at
dawn by the path where the tiger lay. I succeeded

30 INDIAN BIG GAME

in turning them. Old Govind the Korku came
along, beaming with smiles but shivering with
cold. He strolled up the river-bed with his
hands under his blanket as if he were in his own
little hamlet.

" Look here, Govind," I said, " you must be
more careful. The tiger is badly wounded and
has just been roaring from those bushes."

'* What is a tiger, Sahib ? Death is a little
thing, every man has his fate."

We tracked the blood, but the tiger had
moved on.

The patch grew dense with bamboo and long
grass, so we went back to camp to collect
buffaloes and eat some food.

We went out again as soon as possible with the
buffaloes and drove them through the cover up
to its point. There was no result.

" Govind, we must go back to the blood tracks.
We've gone wrong."

He and I walked back outside the cover,
leaving the buffaloes to be collected. The ground
we went over was open, dry plain with yellow
grass an inch long ; it was treeless except for an
occasional sapling.

I was in front, Govind sixty yards behind me.
I happened to turn and saw him halt, turn half
left about, and walk with his right arm slightly
out sideways, palm horizontal with the ground.
Three curious puzzled steps, and out went the
arm further. Another little advance, and still
further out went the accusing arm. I was rapidly
moving on Govind. Out went his arm pointing
straight, and I knew it was the tiger. I ran to

.jm^^*f~m

A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT 31

him, and as I did so he turned and ran hard to
me. I heard three coughing grunts, and there
was the tiger in full charge after Govind and
some fifty yards behind him.

The tiger seemed to gallop very fast with a
marked bounding action. This was probably due
to his broken shoulder. He pecked once, and
snarled. He had his tail erect, his mouth was
wide open. There was literally not a blade of
grass to hide his full beauty in this fine charge.
Govind, all out and giving way to no fatalistic
views, passed close to me on my right. The tiger
was then twenty yards from him.

The -470 caught the tiger in the centre of his
chest where the neck joins it. The bullet raked
the length of his body. He fell in a crumpled
heap, but got up at once. I put the left bullet
through both shoulder-blades. The tiger still
tried with claw and mouth to reach me. I
reloaded and fired into his chest. A shudder
passed over him, and this splendid fighting
savage died without a groan.

He was a heavy male, 9' 5|". It took eight men
to lift him. He fell seventeen paces from me,
having charged for eighty- two paces. He must
have slunk out of the cover on hearing the buffaloes
and squatted under a couple of tiny saplings in
full view. Govind could not believe his eyes at
first and would not signal. I think the tiger was
going a good pace, partly from the way he over-
hauled Govind, who, however, is not a ten-seconds
man, and partly from the tracks. To every third
footmark of the running man came a pad-mark
with claws deep cut.

32 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

Govind came up and we shook each other's
hands. " A man's fate is written," said he.

A httle crowd soon collected, and within a short
time every one of these men claimed to have been
in the fight.

" All these fine fellows seem to have been there,
Govind; where were you and I ? "

" Sahib, we were at H.," said the old man.
(H. is the railway station twenty - two miles
away.)

After this there were a couple of blank days,
and I amused myself sitting up for a panther
which never came. On the second evening I fell
asleep with the little rifle in my lap, and was
awakened by feeling it slip, and hearing the
cartridges go off as it struck the ground below.
There are drawbacks to sitting with the safety
catch in the firing position. Both barrels went
off, the stock was broken at the pistol hand, and
an inch was blown off the muzzle of one barrel.
The rifle had luckily landed muzzle down : the
other way up might have been awkward. This
was the little -318 by Westley Richards, and I
was sorely grieved. However, Chand, the brilliant
Meerut gunsmith, made me a stock as good as
the old one and trimmed and joined the barrels
temporarily. I shot a panther with it soon after-
wards. Since then it has been overhauled by its
makers, the inch has been cut off the other barrel,
and it is now making very accurate shooting —
that is, when I allow it to do so.

There was then a tiger kill some miles down
the river. I had an outlying shikari there and
he made the machan. I could not see to it

A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT 33

myself for I had to go into H. to motor out a
non-shooting guest who came to stop with me.

When I got to the maehan it was dusk. It
was badly made and badly tied to a thin tree on
the top of a bank, above a nullah with a drop of
ten feet. The maehan must have been some
twenty feet up in the tree itself, for there were
three men, one above the other, passing up the kit.

No sooner had the men gone than down came
the vultures in clouds. There would shortly be
no kill left. I threw everything I had at the
birds and then started to get down to put up
some form of stick scarecrow.

I had one hand on a branch and one foot on
another, when both broke, and I found myself
thirty feet down in the nullah. I was knocked
out and unable to move, but not unconscious.
After a little I got up and found my left arm
broken. I felt rather groggy and stupid. Having
taken my boots off for quietness, they, with my
rifle and all the kit, were in the maehan.

It was now dark, but the evening light was still
in the west. I was in a bit of jungle I had not
seen before, thickly wooded, with winding nullahs
and intervening higher ground, skirting the main
river, which lay about a mile to the west.

If I could gain the main river I knew that I
could get home. I tried following the nullah,
but it wound so much and the going was so heavy
that I took a line across country, over nullahs
and up and down hills, steering for the fading
light. There was no path. I had to hold up my
left arm with my right, and could not stoop to pick
out thorns from my feet ; but these were not bad.

D

34 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

After what seemed a long time I struck the
river. I do not know how long I had been ; my
watch had stopped in the fall. Then I got to a
village I knew, and so, some two hours later, at
about 11.30 P.M., to camp. The villagers were
good people and gave me very sweet milk to
drink. They tried to put me in a cart, but this
was too uncomfortable and I walked all the
way.

My guest did first-class work in getting an
American medical missionary out to me from H.
early next morning, and he set my arm, which had
one big and two small breaks. I cannot thank
these two friends enough.

I was carried seven hours during the day into
the rail, and twenty-four hours later was met by
W., and taken to the good Meerut Military Hos-
pital at midnight, where they gave me morphia ;
and I was glad.

The bones had been well set, but the elbow
was also dislocated, and it took some while to
detect this and put it right, as the inflammation
had to go down.

The arm was broken on the 3rd of March. It
was finally reset and put in plaster on the 12th
of March. On the 21st I was riding an elephant
throughout the Kadir Cup Meeting; and on the
10th of April, using a heavy rifle, I shot a tiger :
a good tribute to the skill of Colonel Watts,
Captain Martin, and the nursing sisters. I owe
them my deep gratitude for all their care.

I was very sorry to leave this shoot, where but
for my spill I believe I should have shot three or
four more tiger.

A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT 35

W. and I shot these jungles again in October
1922.

I had two theories : (a) (not original) that the
tiger having been free from worry throughout the
rainy months would come out unsuspiciously on to
their kills ; {b) that the grass being thick, the tiger
would use the paths more than ever, and it was
there that they would be found, instead of by
the rivers as in the hot weather.

Theory a was totally wrong. Theory b was
borne out in part.

But I forgot the autumn running. These
brutes were all in love, and they would caterwaul
to each other all night, while the last things
they thought of were killing and food. They did
kill twelve of our tie-ups, but on the railway
refreshment - room plan — a hasty snack and a
drink of blood and then return no more. I have
seen nothing like it. We shot two tigers, and, as
may be imagined, they were stout old gentlemen
too sensible even in the love season to forego
their dinner and a glass of port.

We were not making machans beforehand on
account of the numerous tie-ups. This was a bad
mistake and probably lost us some tiger.

On these shoots, as well as on many others, I
look back with gratitude to the camaraderie and
help I always met with from my friends of all
ranks of the Imperial Forest Service.

CHAPTER V

A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE IN 1921
" In regions where the burnished sun has sway."

For the last fourteen years I had wanted to shoot
in this State, but, apart from the necessary
permission, the difficulties of transport and the
inaccessibility of the country were considerable.
However, in 1921 I obtained leave, and I would
thank the Maharajah and his state officials for
their courteous help.

The country was one that was seldom shot.
My ground was of unlimited extent, and began
five marches from the nearest railway. It con-
sisted of rocky hills and some open plains inter-
spersed with big sal and light tree jungles through
which ran two main rivers, reduced at this season
to a trickle of water in sandy beds. The plains
had been cultivated, but owing to years of
drought and the great heat then prevailing, they
were at this time very desolate in appearance.

In spite of the efforts made by the State, the
scanty population had to sustain life largely on
the mohwa fruit. Famine conditions were not
actually present, but the fine-drawn bodies and
the prevalence of non-healing sores showed how

36

cHAP.v A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 37

small was the margin of strength among the
people.

Like any one else in similar circumstances, I
naturally did all I could to relieve distress. But
the cartage by camel of rations on any scale
except for my own people was impossible. We
took a few of the worst cases with us, fed them,
treated their sores, and sent them back. Here,
however, we were handicapped by the unwilling-
ness of the people to leave their homes. Even
a trip of ten or twenty miles to the nearest
dispensary was considered a tremendous under-
taking.

On one or two occasions the offer was made
that the patient should be sent in free to the
nearest British Civil Hospital and there main-
tained until cured. In no case was this accepted.
One man had had a useless arm for years. It was
broken, and could be bent at right angles, between
the shoulder and the elbow. This man was told
that some months under a skilled surgeon would
probably give him a sound arm : it should cost
him nothing. The man refused.

Similar offers made to a woman with three
children (obviously dying from lack of nourish-
ment) to have one child educated and brought up
for a few years in a mission school, were not only
refused with tears, but brought a charge of sug-
gested kidnapping and slavery.

With all this conservatism the people were
delightful to meet, civil and willing. They knew
nothing of the world. They turned out to beat
armed with spears, bows and arrows ; and these
weapons were also carried by the postmen on

38 INDIAN BIG GAME

their rounds. Yet it was pathetic that, for all
this naive simplicity, the name of Gandhi was
abroad in the land. It was pathetic, for few of
them knew who Gandhi was or what he stood
for. While I was there they said the edict had
gone forth that there should be no more wine
and no more fowls. I reasoned with them. Wine
was their affair, eggs were mine ; and with out-
stretched cash I persuaded them that a present
Sahib was worth many absent Gandhis.

There were no metalled roads — the cost of their
construction and maintenance in those wild parts
would have been prohibitive — but there were good
tracks. Transport was all by camel, donkey, or
buffalo. Carts were unknown.

My transport consisted of seven baggage
camels, good honest beasts that one could pat
even when they were being loaded, and a marked
contrast to the gurgling atrocities met with on
the roads of Upper India.

The heat was as severe as I have ever known it.
During the hot hours of the day, on going out of
the shade and meeting the hot blast it was as
though one leant against a wall of heat. How-
ever, to many besides myself, I think, the heat
and the hot weather camps are incomparably
more pleasant than the cold. Sport is better in
the heat. There are then the joys of the smell of
the dried-up jungles, the whiff of the hot wind
with its little eddies of dry leaves, the coolness of
the streams, and the shade of great trees. Those
who only camp in cool weather do not know what
a tree can be.

I felt the heat less this year, although we had

A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 39

only single-fly 80 lb. tents, because I always
insisted on camping under really big shady
banyan trees, even though these might involve
our being six or seven miles away from the ground
we were working. I noticed the difference in my
servants. Under the big trees they were well.
In one camp we had to occupy wattle and thatch
huts without tree shade ; neither of my servants
was well, and one of them had considerable head-
ache and bleeding at the nose. A single really
big tree gets more wind than a grove of trees, and
is much cooler.

My tent was always so pitched that a hurdle
screen of grass faced the prevailing wind. While
water was kept on this it was so cold inside that
I had to have a blanket round my middle during
the midday rest.

We were lucky in our trees ; there were
many really fine banyans. Two of the biggest
measured, in the circumference of their midday
shade, 190 and 228 yards respectively. Parrots,
green pigeons, and crows made these trees their
haunt and were in some ways a nuisance. I made
a point of building mounds to meet the down-
coming shoots of these great banyans, thus hasten-
ing nature's beautiful process of extending their
growth and ensuring their continuance for hun-
dreds of years. In one tree we built up fourteen
such. I pay a man a small annual sum for
doing this to a favourite tree in the Kadir. But
he is an idle rogue. The goats eat most of the
shoots.

My friend B. had lent me two shikaris for this
trip : Iseri Singh, a Thakur, and Ram Huruk, a

40 INDIAN BIG GAME

Bheliah, both of them Men — staunch, rehable
tiger shikaris whose equal I have not seen. Ram
Huruk was a silent man of the wilds, a desper-
ately hard worker. Iseri Singh was a delicate
man of refined and civilized type ; highly strung,
and always overworking himself, nerve and
muscle, to the last degree. When beating for
tiger it was his wont to be dressed in spotless
white and to carry a little bamboo switch. This
picture of him I carry now in my mind as he
would arrive at the end of a beat, successful or
not, handling his men with always the same half-
humorous, half-acid smile on his lean keen face.

Our knowledge of the country was only gained
as we went along. B. had sent out a recon-
noitring party for me beforehand, but of the two
shikaris who started, one died and the other came
in delirious with fever and could tell nothing. B.
himself had shot further in the interior, but we
never reached so far. And indeed his notes
would have been of little use, for he went in the
cold weather when conditions and the localities
of tiger are entirely different ; for then the tiger
leave the big jungles and inhabit patches on the
plains, and are consequently easier to obtain than
in the heat.

I left railhead on the 1st of April 1921, after
the Kadir Cup, taking with me an Indian bone-
setter, a masseur who made the nerves and muscles
of my broken arm twang like fiddle-strings when
he massaged me three times daily, completing the
Meerut treatment.

At first it seemed that the services of a steady
shrewd youth would be advisable, and that he

*\ >^^

A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 41

should hold the rifle muzzle while I pulled the
trigger. But finding most youths somewhat
sketchy, I determined to rest the rifle on a cross-
bar, and hoped not to have to do any following-
up at first. Constant daily practice and massage
soon improved matters. Indeed the only time
I felt serious inconvenience was with the first
tigress, on the 10th of April.

The beat was beautifully managed and the
tigress came in at a swinging trot straight for my
machan, but at more of an angle than I had ex-
pected. I could not get the rifle round, and made
a clean miss at thirty yards. The tigress swung
with a roar to her right at a gallop, but throwing
myself forward I was able to get the muzzle to
the left and dropped her dead with a raking shot.
There were four of her cubs, as big as small
panthers, in the beat. Two found their mother
and refused to leave her. I did all I could to
drive them off, but they would not go, and I had
to shoot them to prevent injury to the beaters.

Previous to this a small panther killed a goat
in a pen near camp, and dragged it through a hole
about the size of a football. Both shikaris were
away at work. I tracked this brute and, by a
fluke, found his kill in a nullah some way off. I
spent the day making a machan, sat up, heard
crunching, turned on the light, and missed my
friend at four yards' range with a ball out of a shot-
gun. This was one of those hopeless misses with
which the devil afflicts me at intervals and which
make life a burden. I was the more vexed, for I
wanted to impress the shikaris with my skill in
bagging a panther without any help from them.

42 INDIAN BIG GAME

I shot a second tigress three days after the
first one. She came up a stream, gave an easy
shot, and fell lifeless into the water which half
covered her. Being nervous as to my shooting,
I had arranged to shout results, and I did so at the
top of my voice, thus driving out two male tigers
that were also in the beat. This shouting was a
great mistake. The guns cannot keep too silent
after firing until the beat is over. A tiger will
readily locate continued shouting though he may
be uncertain of the direction whence he heard a
single shot.

If, however, a wounded tiger goes back towards
the beat, then the most powerful signals possible
by voice or instrument should be used, and this
should have one meaning only, "get up trees."

After this episode came a blank period, and
we moved camp twice, getting en route a tiger
kill in a barren and remote valley in the hills.
I ran this myself, as the shikaris were ahead that
day. On my final return I was not pleased to
find the machan men sitting smoking under the
tree. At 7 p.m. the tiger passed growling at
some distance. This meant he would not come
back. At 9 p.m. a panther came and I shot
him by the electric light. He dashed off. At
midnight a hyaena came and ate. At 3 a.m.
another, or the same, hyaena ate and I killed
him by mistake, for the light had run weak. At
dawn a wild dog showed but gave no shot. We
followed up and found the panther in a cave, after
some beautiful tracking by the local men. Investi-
gation showed the side of the panther visible
through a hole, and I killed him. This was a big

V A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 43

male, and the -470 had almost blown off one hind
quarter, poor beast.

A piece of country I was relying on turned out
blank. We twice beat for a heavy tiger, but he
was too good for us. In the previous month tiger
had been troublesome here and had killed some
of the inhabitants, so by the Maharajah's orders
one of his shikaris had come and shot five of
them.

One morning I heard that a bear was asleep in
a cave above the camp. We crept up on tiptoe.
I could see the sleeping beauty's chest through
the front door, and a patch of his hide through a
side crack. I chose the latter, and lying down
took a pot shot at fifteen yards and hit the
rock. The bear fled in a rage and I missed him
with my left — a shocking affair, due, let us hope,
to the damaged rifle which was still unrepaired.

The following night at about 3 a.m. a viflager
woke me saying a bear was feeding in a plain
near camp. So I hopped out in my pyjamas and
soon beheld the bear looming large in the full
moonlight. He never saw me, and I made him
turn twice by scratching with a finger nail. I
shot him through the chest and put another
bullet near his heart as he ran. I could have
repeated the performance with a bear and a cub
the following night, but did not do so on account
of the cub.

Shortly after that we made a night march,
starting at 7 p.m. and getting in at dawn. This
was for Iseri Singh, who was ill with dysentery ;
but I was also glad for the small dog's sake.
Iseri Singh rode, and I gave him brandy at

44 INDIAN BIG GAME

intervals. We had a sick child carried in a dhooly,
and I wondered if he would die on the road.

In the early hours of the morning our path ran
for some miles along the side of a stream, between
it and a line of fringing cliffs. The moon was
at its full ; marching was pleasant. The path
between the stream and the cliffs ran between
shrubs giving forth a wonderful fragrance : the
coolness of the night after the great heat brought
forth all the scent. What flowers or shrubs they
all were I do not know ; jasmine was among
them, the jungle flower that smells of honey, the
champah odours, too, " like sweet thoughts in a
dream," and others that I could not recognize. I
shall always remember that beautiful scented
moonlit march.

We had a quiet time in our new camp from
the 25th of April to the 5th of May. We were after
a man-eater most of the time and did no good.
Iseri Singh gradually recovered, being cured by
the Indian Esuf Gul seed when the English
remedies had failed ; but his own indomitable
spirit helped him most.

We killed a tigress who refused to be beaten
out and took refuge in a cave under high cliffs.
I was called up and at first did not believe in her
existence, until on looking down from the cliff I
heard a roar. Many of the beaters were at the
foot of the cliff. I hurried down and found that
the tigress had put her head out of a cave and
had roared at the nearest men, who were thirty
yards away and separated from her by a gully.
Luckily she did not attack. I took post on the
gully and tried in vain to make her show again.

V A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 45

The tigress' cave looked like a big rabbit hole
under some rocks, and she was probably in view
from the mouth of it, but it did not seem a
suitable occasion to " bell the cat." So Iseri Singh
and I crossed the gully, swung up hill behind the
rocks of the cave, crept to the top of it and sat like
little mice. Ram Huruk withdrew the beaters,
and they went off shouting. Within an hour of
dead silence there was a roar from underneath
us. The tigress sprang out, crossed the gully in
a bound, and took a track leading along the foot
of the cliff. On reaching some bushes she paused
for a second to have a look and gave me a clear
shot, which sent her spinning like a catherine-wheel
down the hill with a bullet through her heart.

This was rather a professional show. Every
one knew his job, and practically no orders were
given.

Our next camp was in a village, and really
hot. There were no suitable trees for miles. We
stayed there a week, and at the insistence of some
of the men I gave two rupees for '' Poo j ah " to
produce tiger. That night a tiger killed two of
our tie-ups, and I spent the night keeping up a
fire and holding on to my little dog in bed to
protect him from a panther who made the night
hideous with his "sawing" in and round the
village. So we all felt we had had our two
rupees' worth.

We never got the tiger : there were large and
unexpected caves in the beat (bad reconnaissance).
I deserved to lose this beast. The previous
evening. Ram Huruk, who had been detached for
some days, reported that he had come across the

46 INDIAN BIG GAME

tracks of a big tiger making for one or other of the
nullahs on which we were tying up. Had I sat
up I should have seen a daylight kill.

After this, two marches took us to a glorious
camp under a grand tree, where we lived in comfort,
forgetful of the last bad quarters, and where I
had one of the finest times of my life, shooting
seven full-grown tiger, ranging from 10' 1" to 8' 2",
within one week, all in the same beat of country
and from the same tree.

This, however, did not happen for a week.
Meanwhile I shot a panther stone-dead under the
electric light, and made a mess of a tiger kill.
The kill had been dragged a few yards and was
so wedged into and under a low bank that I
thought there was no need to picket it. Still
fastened round the buffalo's neck was one of the
wooden bells with a wooden clapper that makes
almost the noise of an ordinary deep-toned bell.

I went to sleep and was wakened by the boom-
ing of a bell. I rubbed my eyes and thought of
church, and it took a little time before I realized
that this was the bell ringing as the body was
being dragged off. The kill was already out of
the arc of the light. After several periods of
ringing and silence I lost patience and stood up
in the machan, and in poor moonlight could
dimly see a long-bodied tiger mixed up with, and
dragging, the kill. It was too far for an aimed
shot. The tiger saw me at the same time, dropped
the kill and went off. Next morning tracks
showed that a tiger and tigress had been there,
and the male stood at a safe distance up a side
nullah while the lady dragged the kill.

A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 47

In this neighbourhood there flourished an inter-
esting industry, unaltered since the days of Tubal
Cain. The sand of the river-bed had iron in it, and
I watched the whole process, within a few hours,
of heating the sand, melting and running off the
iron, and making it into an axe-head, which I have
now. One man, the smith, worked on the furnace
and forge, while his wife, a very pretty woman,
and another girl worked the bellows with their
feet, standing ; and hard work it looked.

Food ran short, so one day we had a battue
of haryal (green pigeon) from our tree, firing
heavily. This was stupid in tiger jungle, but it
turned out to be the best thing that could have
been done, for it drove off the tiger from our
tributary streams, across the big river-bed and
into "The Nullah," where we got them.

This nullah ran into a tributary of the big
river on the bank opposite to us. Where it
debouched it was only a narrow sandy stream-
bed. Higher up, the ground on either side of
it rising rapidly, it mounted in a succession of
rocky pools of water, amidst dense foliage and
undergrowth which were almost hidden from the
level of the surrounding ground. After some
quarter of a mile of a winding course of this
nature The Nullah rose again to ground level,
and, bifurcating, surrounded the slopes of a little
hill. On the upper side of this hill was a little
plateau about 150 yards square. This plateau
was really the end of a ridge, and from it a gap
led down into the big river. The ridge itself had
cliffs ten to thirty feet high on the river side and an
easy slope on The Nullah and tributary side.

48

INDIAN BIG GAME

The Nullah was five miles from our camp,
but with our good tree I would not move.

We discovered this place accidentally, owing
to a tiger killing a village cow near to it. Ram
Huruk heard of it when on outlying work, and

Trees

Sketch Map of "The Nullah"

Scale

I Mile

marched at once ; tied up at about 10 p.m. and
got a kill that night. He stayed within a mile of
the place from that time onwards.

Iseri Singh stopped in camp ready for kills
elsewhere. He, of course, joined Ram Huruk
daily on news coming in, and this arrangement
worked well.

A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 49

Ram Huruk's report with the news of the kill
was that there were four tiger concerned in the
matter. This was correct. For the first beat
we made a big detour, covering about eight miles
in all, to meet the assembled beaters and stops.
We rectified this later, and used to meet the stops
at the machan. The stops were well and quickly-
put out by the two shikaris in their usual fan-
shaped method, opening out from the machan.

During the whole of this shoot, when beating
I used a built machan with a basket stool. I am
a great believer in a stool ; but I am sure a little
platform with rings is easier to put up and is less
noisy than a machan. I had not one with me.

A noted tiger shot of thirty years ago told a
friend of mine that he had shot 200 tiger beating,
and that he always stood on a bough with a rope
round his waist and the tree. He was free to
shoot in any direction, could use any tree, and be
ready in a minute.

But to return to the beat. After some time a
tigress crept up towards my tree and I dropped
her dead. A little later a handsome tiger ap-
peared from the slopes on my right and came
straight under the machan. I missed him as he
came, jumped to the other side of the machan,
and killed him as he appeared on the other side.

A third tiger came out from the same spot, but
took a diagonal course at about eighty yards from
me on my right rear. Vision was impeded by
bushes and boughs in my own tree, which I
cut aAvay later. I got a difficult shot, however,
and the tiger lurched but went on through the
gap, giving me no chance to fire again.

E

50 INDIAN BIG GAME

The fourth tiger broke out of the beat and
never reached the plateau.

We got the beaters away and found the place
where the tiger had been hit. He had bled freely
and had passed dung. A back stop on the gap
said he saw blood coming from his side.

We went on too soon, not giving the tiger
time to stiffen. It was getting late : we had five
miles to travel and at least two tigers to skin.
It was an inexcusable mistake to follow blood-
tracks instead of keeping to the top of the cliffs
of the long ridge. We thought the tiger was
working down to the river. Instead, he had gone
along the foot of the cliffs. We heard a roar from
round an abutting corner of rock, and saw the
silhouette of the tiger against the sky, but he
disappeared too quickly for a shot. On reaching
the top we continued following up, but could
not get hold of him and had to leave him in the
dusk. We got home late, and I skinned till long
past midnight.

Had we left the tiger for a couple of hours, he
would have stiffened and never moved. Had we
gone along the top of the cliffs, I should have had
an easy shot, and we should have avoided asking
for a charge. This was really bad work, haunting
the memory.

We were out at dawn next morning and took
up the tracks again, but blood had ceased. The
rocks showed no tracks, so we sadly gave up the
hunt. I believe the poor beast had never reached
the river and was dead in a cave beneath our
feet.

We worked through all the ground of the

A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 51

preceding day's beat and found a shallow cave
that had been recently used by tiger. This
should have been stopped had we ever dreamt of
another tiger being in this beat.

At 10 A.M., as we were abandoning the follow-
up, news reached us of two kills : one of a big
village buffalo near The Nullah and another on
one of our camp -side tributaries. I sent word
to camp for my bedding and some food and drink
to be sent to the scene of the kill of the big
buffalo ; and then we collected men to beat for
the other tiger. While waiting we lay on the
river bank. Food and drink were short, and it
was mighty hot. We had two beats. The first
was a blank, the second held the tiger, who was
lying up close to my tree. He roared and broke
back, and I never saw him.

I then hurried off to the big buffalo and found
that none of my kit had turned up and no machan
had been made. It was after dark before I got
things shipshape, and naturally no tiger came,
though I heard him grumbling in the neighbour-
hood. None but a tiger of the largest size could
have killed this buffalo.

In the morning we found traces of a really
big tiger leading into The Nullah, and then we
went home, glad to rest and look to skins.

Next day came news from Ram Huruk of
another kill in The Nullah. We beat as before.
A red tigress tried to get out over the ridge on my
left, but was well turned by a stop. She then
crossed my front and halted about a hundred
yards away, covered by a tree, with only her head
and quarters visible. I aimed in front of her

52 INDIAN BIG GAME

and fired as she moved. There was no apparent
result, and she went off at speed over the brow
of the plateau on my right and I missed her with
the left barrel.

In another five minutes the big tiger himself
walked past the machan at some thirty yards'
distance, giving me time to watch him. I have
seen no finer sight than the stately, bored swing
of this great beast as he moved, with head bent
down, ears back and tail drooping. My eye
caught the rippling muscles of his shoulder like
an instantaneous photograph. I killed him in
three shots, and he died very savagely, splintering
one of his big teeth on a stone.

I suppose my left arm was not yet taking its
full share of the recoil of the -470, for the second
shot broke my nose. I hurriedly put it straight
again, but the third shot broke it for life, for I had
no means of keeping it straight.

Iseri Singh, the immaculate, came up. " That's
a nice tigress you've killed. Sahib," said he.

She had galloped over the brow and fallen
dead with a bullet through her last rib.

The world went very well then.

The big tiger measured 10' 1" over curves,
9' 4" between pegs, girth 54", forearm, 18j".
The tigress was 8' 2", and looked tiny beside him.

We skinned most of the night and were glad to
rest the next day, but I had to sit up the following
night over a kill on our side. Nothing came
except my little dog Bhaloo, who had tracked me.
I could not curse him for such fidelity, but I
did not want him to stop. The situation was
difficult.

V A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 58

In the morning on returning to camp I found
news from The Nullah of another kill by a tiger,
tigress, and cub. We beat, and the two last broke
out, but the tiger came to the plateau, spotted me,
halted, and after a longish pause galloped past
the rear of the maehan at forty yards. But all
this part had been well cleared, and the -470
dropped him with a bullet through the hind-
quarters, and killed him with a second in the
chest. This was a handsome well-marked tiger,
8' 111".

On the following day there was yet another
kill in The Nullah, by a tigress this time. We
beat as usual. The tigress came up the plateau
from the right, saw me at once, and crossed my
right rear diagonally at full speed in big bounds.
I was lucky enough to hit her through the heart
at the top of one of her bounds. She turned a
complete somersault, landed on her head and fell
spread-eagled, dead : a spectacular shot.

This really finished the week, and I was glad
of a rest for a couple of days, for I was sick and
giddy when I tried to walk, owing I suppose to
the heat and the work.

There was a final kill in The Nullah by a
tiger, but he took cover in the cave I have
mentioned which we ought to have stopped, and
when the beaters came up he sprang out amongst
them and broke away, hurting no man.

We waited a few days, but nothing more
happened there, and so with regret we bade good-
bye to this wonderful nullah.

The shoot was now nearly over. We moved
camp three times and then had to make forced

54 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

marches to the station, lest the rains should flood
the rivers and stop our camel transport.

I shot a panther one day, sitting up. Another
night I had a blank tiger kill, but watched a bear
with some amusement ; and we made a real mess
of two tiger. Their ground was some miles from
camp : the shikaris were late with the machan,
and the tigers spotted me. They came the first
night, nibbled, and went before I could fire.
After that they played the devil with us. When
the machan was empty they killed in daylight :
when I was there they never came. Except when
we beat for them, they lay up near. They ate
four good buffaloes with all the honours of war.
More power to them.

The only action to take in a case like this is
to sit up, and go on sitting up, over live buffaloes.
I had not time.

Much grateful mention must be made of my
shikaris, for to them was due the success of the
shoot. This is the only recent trip on which I
have had good shikaris of my own.

I cannot too strongly urge any one going on
a big-game expedition to take with him at least
two expert shikaris, no matter what they cost.
Such men will repay the expense over and over
again. They are to be obtained from Hyderabad
and the various other parts of tiger-shooting
India.

Economy and a feeling of fairness seem at
first sight to render the employment of local men
only, desirable. But this is entirely unsound.
Local men have no idea of the essentials of time
and space. Their idea of a beat is to put the guns

V A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 55

at one end of a cover, mass several hundred men
at the other end, set them off and hope for the
improbable. As outlying shikaris they arc in-
accurate and cannot be depended on. I write
this deliberately and with a full recollection of the
many good local men I have had. But with the
exception of a man called Permanand and one
other, they all failed in higher tactics and were
best fitted for subordinate work.

Good shikaris will be worth their pay in the
saving on ineffective beats and useless tie-ups
alone. Knowing that he has such men, the
sportsman can rest, and need not always go round
every kill and tie up every machan himself. He
will then be fresh and ready for the real stress
when it comes.

To conclude : I have written this chapter at
length, not to boast, for we did nothing wonder-
ful ; but to try to show the young generation the
sport that is still to be had in India by an ordinary
sportsman without the aid of high office, or other
help than that of good shikaris and the cordial
goodwill and assistance of the Rulers and people
of the Land.

And this help, believe me, is still to be obtained
throughout India by any keen sportsman who
knows how to ask for it.

Good-bye, dear State, and kindly Maharajah.
I see you often in my dreams. May I see you
again in reality.

CHAPTER VI

A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES IN 1920
" Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake."

In the preceding chapter I have talked rather big
of success, but now I must indeed cry small ;
for in this shoot, a year before the one in that
chapter, everything possible went wrong, and I
made every stupid mistake that a man could.

But I shall always ascribe this as largely due
to the Sacred Tank. This little tank, miles
from any temple or Indian dwelling-place, lay
on the fringe of the jungle near our forest bunga-
low, in the block where my wife and I had been
given leave to shoot. The little old chowkidar
said that the tank was sacred, and that it must
never be disturbed. Alas, duck on the water
were too tempting, and I shot some of them.
Also I fired at and missed a four-horned antelope
in the vicinity.

We got a kill in a few days on an isolated hill
near civilization. As I went to sit up, some
animal of the cat tribe crossed the fire-line in
front of me, but it was too far for me to make
out whether tiger or panther. I could find no
satisfactory footprints.

The shikaris were away reconnoitring. They

66

CHAP VI A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES 57

were a pair who had been lent me. One of them
was sick, and the other was an old man who had
quite outlived his great and well-earned reputa-
tion. Both men are now dead, I am sorry to say.

I had run this tie-up myself, and suspected
the kill might be that of a panther.

Before I had been sitting up an hour, a small
panther stalked up to the kill, very cleverly, but
with such an air of proprietorship that I regarded
it as the criminal and killed it. I got down and
hid the body, and went on sitting up in the vain
hope that a tiger might come. In the morning
there were unmistakable tracks of a tigress that
had come to a certain distance and then turned
off, presumably on hearing the shot. A bungled
business.

The weather was getting warm, so we decided
to march up to the hilly plateau, some 1500 feet
high, which lay in our block. My wife went up
at daybreak, driven in a little country ringhi cart,
while I followed later, having seen off all the kit.
My wife was escorted for part of the way by two
jackals which ran behind her cart.

As they went up the ghat a panther crossed
the road in front of them, climbed on to the over-
hanging bank at the side of the road, and sat there
looking at them as they passed, and until they
were out of sight. Neither my wife nor the
bullock man had any weapons, and they kept
their heads and did well, taking no notice of the
panther.^ But they were glad to be gone.

^ Note by the Author's wife : — I cannot agree with the above
account I Far from " taking no notice," I took, on the contrary,
every notice. The driver and I stared at the panther, fascinated

58 INDIAN BIG GAME

This ghat road was a good piece of work of
the Forest Engineers. It was an excellent country
road that ran from civilization through ten miles
of risino^ and hillv forests, and then climbed to
the plateau up the side of a long wide valley
many hundred feet deep. This valley practically
separated all our part of the plateau from the
middle and lower jungles. It lay all along under-
neath the edge of the plateau, and made an un-
beatable and almost inaccessible sanctuary for
tiger, whence they could sally either up to the
plateau or down to the jungles at the foot of the
ghat.

The plateau itself consisted of rolling downs,
woody hillocks, and grassy dales, with a stream
of water running through it. It is luckily too
low to make a hill-station, for which it would
otherwise be admirably suited.

The jungle was of the usual Central Province
type, but looked very refreshing owing to the
sheeshums and other similar trees, which were
performing their annual miracle of putting out
their fresh green foliage at the driest season of
the year.

and he stared at us for what seemed a long time. I'm sure I
should know him again !

We then tried to " shoo " him away by clapping our hands
and shouting, but he made no attempt to move, and sat regarding
us with slowly waving tail. Not being used to meeting wild
beasts at liberty — face to face in this manner — discretion seemed
the better part of valour, so we moved on. The panther remained
in the same place watching us till the curve of the road hid him
from view.

Later it was reported that a panther with cubs had been seen
near this spot, so possibly ours was this female, and we may have
got between her and the cubs, which might account for her
curious behaviour. — ^A. C. VV.

VI A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES 59

Our camp was under two noble peepul trees,
which treacherously shed their leaves as the heat
increased and shade was required. Yet we
summered very well here. A hot wind always
blew during the day, and with well-watered
grass screens in our E.P. tent, we had all the
coolness possible in the hot weather.

At our door was the solitary Gond village.
No one else lived on the plateau.

We had half-a-dozen tie-ups out ; and the first
morning before I had been round any of them,
and we were still settling down in camp, news
came in that a tiger had killed half a mile away,
and was eating his kill in the open.

My wife and I hurried out, and at 8.30 a.m.,
from a distance of some three hundred yards, saw
a tiger eating his kill in the open in the full sun-
light. My wife watched events from this spot
on a little hillock. She could see the ensuing
stalk, and also the tiger as he lifted up the kill
at intervals, shook and tore it.

The old shikari had a genuine cough, so the
other man and I stalked up a nullah and into
a little piece of jungle which ended a short
distance from the tiger. We worked from the
right, not knowing the ground. Had we crawled
to our left and then swung right-handed, an easy
grass approach and a shot at a hundred yards
would have been obtained. As it was, crackling
fallen leaves were a sore trouble. We got to
within twenty yards of the far edge of the jungle,
and I thought all was well, for a 'jungle sheep ' got
up a few yards on our right on the slope above us
and walked away with its back to the tiger. We

60 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

could see the tiger eating, but there were so many
intervening twigs that I feared the bullet would
be deflected ; so we made a final bound for a tree
near the edge. I was leading, and just missed
treading on a tigress lying down. She got up
with a roar and went up hill, giving me a quick
tail shot, which I would not take. The tiger,
hearing the roar, followed fast in the same line,
but exposed his right side diagonally. He was
also straight above us and some thirty yards
away. I did not fire : I wish I had. I did not
then know the power of the -470.

That was the end of that affair. I was vexed,
but was glad that my wife had had so good a view.

After that we reconnoitred all tie-up ground,
and cut paths to allow of noiseless approach.

Only one place admitted of a beat. This was
a nullah that rose in the high ground above the
ghat valley, and ran down into the main stream
that watered the plateau. There was beautiful
green bush and tree cover with running water,
and tiger would sometimes lie up here. Every-
where else they preferred to hop over into the
big ghat valley.

We got a kill in this nullah, and beat, but I do
not think the tiger was ever in the beat. This
was bad work.

I let the men make a machan like a crow's
nest among the bare branches of a big huldoo tree,
which had good leaves on its top, and sat up.
The big electric - light batteries had run down,
and during all this shoot I had to sit near the
kill, and use the ordinary flashlight torch. More-
over, my tree was on one slope of the nullah and

VI A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES 61

the tiger's approach was on the other at a height
equal to my own. Naturally the tiger saw me,
and I heard him cursing for a long time, as he went
along the stream, with the jungle ringing and all
the peacocks screaming in answer to his deep
"aa-oonh's."

This " aa-oonh " is the most beautiful of all
the tiger calls. It is distinctly a " call " and not
a hunting note. It starts with a deep " aa,"
and the " oonh " is long-drawn and musical,
and much higher pitched than the " aa." Like
the hunting note, it has a marked vibrating sound.
A strong nasal n runs through both call and
hunting note. Both can be heard to a great
distance in the stillness of the night. I have
only heard this " aa-oonh " five times : once on
this occasion, once when it was certainly a tigress
calling to her mate (vide Chapter IV.), once when
a tiger was returning home in the dawn, and twice
in the jungle, when I knew nothing of the
attendant circumstances.

The subject of tigers' calls is little understood ;
one recent writer says they seldom do call. I do
not think he is right. In solitary camps and
sitting up in the deep jungles, the voice of the
tiger may be often heard; and I have frequently
tried to put down the actual sound on paper at
the time, or soon afterwards.

The hunting note I have spoken of is " Eh-
unrh," with the second note much deeper than
the first. Its object is to frighten game, and so
cause it to betray itself to the listening tiger. But
it is also used when a tiger is suspicious and has
no intention of coming to a kill. The more silent

62 INDIAN BIG GAME

a tiger is, the more he means business. In the
two kills by tiger of which I have personal know-
ledge, there was no call or roar on either occasion.

I have ventured to classify the two noises I
have described. Whatever their object, there is
no doubt, in my mind, that the two are entirely
different and distinct from one another.

I have also once or twice heard a tiger make a
sing-song humming noise.

In addition there is the well-known charging
roar, sometimes almost a grunt. I believe that
this generally means fear, and I suppose probably
rage, on the tiger's part.

Also there are a variety of cat noises, yawn,
spit, and growl, when two tigers are playing
together.

I have never heard a tiger make a noise in
any way resembling the " bell " of a sambhur.

Finally on this subject, in the matter of
" speaking to a shot," I do not think this is any
criterion whatever of a hit. Some tigers " speak "
when hit, others do not.

To revert to the shoot, there were a couple
of kills at another tree where the machan had
already been put up, but neither with live nor
dead animals would the tiger have any dealings
with me when I sat up. Presumably noise or
smell gave me away.

We had another kill in the only beatable
nullah. The old shikari insisted on beating it
down hill this time. This was anyhow a mistake,
and in this case meant beating away from the
tiger's line of retreat (which was to the ghat
valley). Moreover, the machan was within fifty

A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES 63

yards of and below the dense cover to which
the tiger had dragged the kill. The result was
that as my wife was halfway up the tree she
saw the tiger break out. I never saw him. He
broke clean away, nearly, but unfortunately not
quite, knocking over our cook, who had come
out to watch proceedings.

The shikaris saw this tiger on the kill in the
morning. Virtue being its own reward, I had not
gone round the tie-ups this morning, as we had
been up till late the night before, filing the ring
off the toe of a poor little Gond girl, who was in
much pain. This operation took three hours,
with a pocket file, and by the light of a hurricane
lamp.

After the beat I sat up for this brute in a high
tree over the kill, which lay in the rippling stream.
Owing to the water, I never woke when the tiger
came, and only heard his departing crunches
at dawn. My wife and I sat up again the
following night. The tiger came blundering down,
but I think heard me, and went off silently, giving
no shot. He sing-songed as he passed our tree
on his way home in the dawn.

Nightly tracks of tiger were now found on
the ghat road. We first tied up on the road
itself, and next morning found nothing but horns
and hoofs left. A pack of wild dogs had eaten
every bit of the tie-up. I tried for these pests
and failed to get them.

Then we tied up where the road began to rise,
and had a couple of beats, but in both cases the
tiger had gone to his sanctuary.

I sat up after both blank beats. This is not

64 INDIAN BIG GAME

a bad thing to do, but it is tiring. On the
first occasion I omitted to picket the kill, which
had been dragged. I sat up in dense cover
almost above the kill, and saw it vanish just as
the light went. I never saw the tiger, and I
believe the brute hooked the kill round a corner
with his paw. He then munched away con-
tentedly for hours, while I climbed about my
tree, flashed the lamp, peered, and cursed.

On the other occasion the machan had to be
a sort of spillikin jackdaw's nest, low down in a
small clump of bamboos, which I hate, anyhow,
for they always creak. I sat cramped and un-
comfortable on the side of the road with my
back to it, and facing the scene of the previous
failure.

Soon after dusk I heard the tiger moving
behind me on the bank above and across the road.
The kill was very close, and fearing a dragging
episode similar to the last, I determined to fire
as soon as the tiger appeared. In moving my
rifle I touched a tiny twig. The tiger, who had
been advancing, swung round with a grunt, and
departed for good.

Sad at heart, I curled up to sleep; and as the
mosquitoes were bad, pulled a blanket over my
head. I was awakened by the crunching of
bones. It took me over twenty (timed) minutes
to get silently into a firing position. There was
a panther on the kill.

The torch, which I had tested and found correct
when the tiger went, refused to act. The panther
was suspicious, and ate deliberately round the
kill, moving with the moonlight, to keep himself

A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES 65

in the dark. Then he gave a spring, walked
under my tree, too directly underneath for me
to fire, and was gone.

Again I slept, and the whole proceeding was
repeated. I would not fire at the obscure outline
in the dark, and so I never got him. This was
my wife's panther, and I wish I had fired.

" Sahib, at any rate do fire, even if you miss,"
said the younger shikari. He was right : rifles
that are never fired kill the enthusiasm of one's
people.

The scene of interest then shifted back to the
plateau. Going round one morning, we missed
seeing a tiger who appeared to the men coming
to untie the tie-up just after we had left.

There was then a kill in wild country on the
edge of a stream with deep ravines. A sambhur
" belled " at 1 a.m., and I was ready and waiting
when the tiger loomed up in the moonlight. He
gave the kill a tremendous tug and started eating.
I turned the weak torch on to him, but it mingled
with the moonlight and showed me nothing clearly.
However, I risked a shot.

The tiger dashed off. I heard a heavy fall
and a groan, and then all was still. Next morning
we found much blood where the tiger had fallen
in a faint, but no tiger. We followed up through
awkward ground. The tracks emerged into the
stream bed, which was some ten yards wide.
Grass a couple of feet high grew in it. I believed
the tiger was sneaking forward : I was convinced
the grass was too low to hold him. Therefore
I told the men to follow the tracks while I ran
along the edge of the grass to a little bluff ahead.

66 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

On arriving there I found a second bluff beyond
it. This had a better command of the further
reach of the stream, so I was running to it when
I heard a roar from behind the first bluff.

On approaching this bluff the shikaris had
flushed the tiger out of knee - high grass. He
sprang up the bank and got away over rocky
ground. I never saw him, then or afterwards.
The men said he showed blood on his left side,
but I could find none and could get no tracks.
The young shikari was sick, the old man was beat,
and the local men were not keen.

My tactics here were as bad as could be. No
matter what the temptation may be, when one is
following a wounded animal there is only one
possible place for the gun, that is level with the
leading tracker, until the animal is retrieved
or the hunt abandoned. {See footnote at end of
chapter.)

My original shot was a bad one. I ought to
have put out the torch and waited till the tiger
was in such a position that I could get a certain
shot.

The following-up as far as the main stream
was correct and careful.

In following up, the important thing is to go
from point to point in bounds. If there are two
reliable guns one can cover the other. This is
the only occasion on which they may separate.
The points made for may well be ahead of the
trackers if the country permits. The point being
made good, the track is carried up to it. If the
track goes into low ground or nullahs, the high
ground first on one bank and then on the other

VI A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES 67

should be searched before any one follows the
tracks themselves. And above all, the gun must
be level with the leading tracker, or, better, just
ahead of him.^

It was hateful to think of this poor wounded
beast, and we waited a week to try and get him,
but failed.

One day I met a bear on the path, and slew
him to the surprise of every one, including the
bear.

On another day we heard bears yelling, and,
after a long run, came on them digging. One of
them was upside down with his head in a hole.
I knelt down and fired right and left with the
•470, and missed. I nearly cried. The back sight
of the rifle, I discovered afterwards, had been
knocked almost a quarter of an inch to one side.
This really ended the shoot, and I am sure it
was about time.

I learnt much and enjoyed the days. But I
offer sacrifice to all the jungle gods : and never
again do I shoot on a sacred tank.

^ It is interesting to compare this point with what Mr. Morris
says on p. 149 — A. C. W.

CHAPTER VII

MY FIRST TIGER

By C. W. G. Morris

I SAILED for India in February 1890 from Aus-
tralia, to join my brother on his coffee estate, after
having spent close upon five years in the latter
country, where I had learned to shoot the rabbit
and the native bear and to moon the " possum."

It was a proud youth that stepped on board at
Melbourne, as my colleagues had presented me
with a -450 Winchester repeater which the gun-
maker assured me would shoot elephant. I was
yet to live and learn, but I little realized what a
trusty weapon it would prove, and that with it I
was to bag my first " Bengal."

As, with the exception of six months in 1895,
the whole of my time was spent on and within a
few miles of my brother's coffee estate, I will
first describe the country that I know and like
so well. The description of it is, to me, the
more interesting in that there were three totally
different types of shooting ground lying at my
feet, any one of which could be negotiated, and a
morning's stalk for game prosecuted, by leaving
my bungalow before sunrise and bending my
steps as fancy chose.

68

CHAP VII MY FIRST TIGER 69

My bungalow itself was situated on a hill
surrounded by virgin jungle and grassy slopes.
The forest was always green and cool. While out
in the coffee clearings, in March and April
especially, the sun would strike very hot, but there
was always a cool breeze, and the moment you
entered the shade of the jungle it was wonder-
fully cold — in fact to sit down, overheated from
walking in the sun, was unwise, until at least you
had walked yourself cooler. Visitors who came
to our hills to escape the hot weather of Bangalore
have declared we had an Italian climate. I never
knew what it was to use a mosquito curtain, and a
blanket at night all the year round was necessary.
There was one lovely stretch of jungle through
which a well-graded road wound for three miles.
Many a time, during the hottest part of the
year, have I ridden or walked along this road
in a forest so dense and shady that the midday
sun could barely penetrate and never be felt,
everywhere green freshness meeting the eye,
cool streams splashing at intervals, huge trees
towering above one ; to take a walk there was
indeed a tonic — one's worries seemed to slide
away. Of course in the south-west monsoon these
shady spots were damp and perhaps uninviting ;
the leeches, too, were rather bad, but I have seen
them much worse in other places.

The grass hillsides too had their beauty, especi-
ally when the young grass shot up in April or May.
Many's the tough climb I have had up their sides.

From the bungalow, sambhur, bear, elephant,
(and once a tiger) have been seen wandering
along the slopes.

70 INDIAN BIG GAME

To the west of us lay the Malay Kadu about
1000 feet below. This is a jungle of coarse long
grass, in the rains growing to the height of ten
feet ; except on the banks of streams where ever-
green trees grew, the majority were deciduous,
and for a couple of months, especially after the
grass fires, the trees would have a bare, spectre-
like appearance. I have done very little shooting
in the Malay Kadu. Only three months in the
year are good for shooting, the grass being too
long at other times. The elephant and bison
could be met at all seasons in this jungle.

The third type was the Naad or low country,
which lay to the east, and could be reached
by following a bridle-track for seven miles ; this
could be ridden nicely the whole way except
where the road zigzagged at the steepest part
near the foot of the hills, and then I only got
off the pony going down ; I always rode up the
zigs. This was the country I liked best of all
for shooting and in which I got the most and
best sport.

On the road down the first sign of change was
the teak, and lower still you entered the bamboo.
Except for the first three miles where the road
led through the virgin jungle I mentioned before,
it wound along the side of grass hills. The
scenery was grand ; on the one side your eye
would travel for miles over nothing but grass-clad
sloping hills, many of them capped with virgin
jungle. The road followed a mountain torrent.
You crossed it by a bridge about four miles
from the bungalow, left it on the right, unseen
but within sound, until you reached the lower

\

m MY FIRST TIGER 71

plateau, where the road just touched its banks.
Almost as soon as the bridge was crossed, you
could see the Naad stretching for miles below
you due east, until it was lost in the haze of
the horizon. The Naad had always a great
attraction for me. The game was more varied,
and above all the tiger dwelt there. It is hard
to say what is really the best time to be in
these parts. When going far east, I found in
November and December that sport was certain,
whereas after that, from January till April of the
open season, it meant failure. On the other
hand, within ten miles of the hill range running
north and south, the month of* April was hard
to beat. The grass is then short and the mango
showers rendered the ground excellent for
stalking, besides bringing up the young grass
shoots.

To shoot in the low country one must be able
to endure much greater heat with very little shade,
and in the bamboo any amount of mosquitoes. I
have been terribly bitten by them, even in the
day-time in some of the denser bamboo parts.
When once the Naad was reached, you were
wrapped in, so to speak, and your perspective
was circumscribed. The grass consisted chiefly
of spear-grass. Open spaces for any distance
were few and far between, the timber chiefly
small and deciduous, with innumerable thickets
scattered about. Here and there were river-
beds, whose banks were shady with bamboo, wild
mango, and tamarind trees. Such surroundings
constituted the Naad, and here one might expect
to see anything from an elephant to a moose deer.

72 INDIAN BIG GAME

My bag for 1890 only comprised two four-
horned mountain antelope, although in May my
brother gave me an opportunity of seeing big
game in the Mysore Malay Kadu, where I wounded
my first bison. But alas ! that day proved that a
Winchester was not the rifle to use at bison, and
that no rifle is of any use in the hands of an untried
excited sportsman. Just as I commenced to
descend a grassy slope, I came suddenly on a
herd of gaur or bison, and then the fun began ;
to take aim never entered my head. I was
literally surrounded by these brutes, and learnt
in after years that bison often do this when they
are uncertain as to what they are dealing with.
My brother told me afterwards that he thought
the battle of Waterloo was on, and I reckon my
rifle repeated pretty often. When I had dis-
persed the herd my shikari cast round for tracks,
and found blood, strangely enough too, from a
big bull, but my brother who followed up later
did not come up to him.

My first four-horned mountain antelope caused
me great joy. These little buck favour grassy
hills and are very keen of sight, necessitating a
long shot. There was a hill within a mile of the
bungalow named after these graceful animals.
Nearly every morning and evening found me on
this hill, often having a shot and always missing.
One evening I wandered off alone, as usual taking
the west side which sloped down right into the
Malay Kadu 1000 feet below us. When about
three parts down I espied an antelope and fired,
when it rushed helter-skelter almost to the level
of the plateau below. I felt I had hit at last,

vu MY FIRST TIGER 73

and sure enough found blood and, further on, the
animal itself dead. I was so delighted that I did
what I would hesitate to do again. I tied its legs
together with my handkerchief and slung it on
my rifle. I toiled up that hill and did not reach
the bungalow until long after dark. Only the
buoyancy of having shot one at last kept me up.
It weighed 60 lbs., so you can imagine how stiff I
felt for days afterwards.

What I always look upon as my first real shoot
since landing in India took place in February,
when I left for the Naad on a ten days' shoot,
which ended in being only three and a half days,
as on the fourth an urgent " chit " came down to
say my brother was very poorly and was going to
Coimbatore to see a doctor. In those three and
a half days I shot six spotted deer stags (chital).
The last chital of that trip to fall to my rifle was
the biggest I have shot in the whole of my career
in India. The antlers measured 36 inches, and
were in prime condition, with a few shreds of velvet
still on so that the beading was perfect. I had
taken on a local shikari, by name Poota Madha,
a Shivasha, therefore a man of high caste, who
could not touch meat. He was wonderfully
sharp-sighted, but had two glaring faults in my
opinion — he was almost stone-deaf and walked
much too fast, long experience having taught me
that the man who saunters sees the most, and
gets the best chances.

Now for the big stag.

We had wandered all over the jungle without
getting a chance of a shot, by which time we had
neared a favourite haunt of the chital ; but it

74 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

was now 10 a.m., when deer have mostly taken
cover, so, hearing some pea-fowl calling ahead
in the direction we were going, and quite for-
getting that probably Poota Madha — who held
my shot-gun — had not heard their cry, I was
expecting every moment to see these gorgeous
birds, when suddenly my gun-bearer dropped on
to his knees, I following suit as quickly as possible.
With my whole mind on pea-fowl, I tried to
wrench my scatter-gun from the shikari, whose
only reply was " Fire, fire, don't you see the ' barre
hore ' ? " — i.e. big stag. Looking in the direc-
tion he indicated, my heart jumped into my
mouth as I saw a large herd of these beautiful
deer slowly grazing forward, with several good
heads in the herd and one exceptionally good stag
nearest to me, who, with head erect and antlers
branching over his back, looked majestic, very
dark in colour and the neck almost black. I was
trembling so with excitement that I muttered a
heartfelt prayer for my bullet to carry true as I
took aim and fired. My stag had vanished, and
Poota Madha was positive I had missed, but when
he told me that the whole herd had run off in one
direction and the stag had dashed off in another,
I was equally sure that I had hit, so insisted upon
following the tracks most carefully, although
there was no sign of blood. We had not followed
far when the stag himself proved he was hit by
jumping up and rushing off, without giving me
a chance to draw a bead. Where he had lain
down were the unmistakable signs of a paunch
wound. In my shakiness I had pulled to the
right, my favourite shot being just behind the

vn MY FIRST TIGER 75

shoulder blade. He broke away a second time,
but presently we caught sight of him lying down
before he was sufficiently alarmed to break again.
We crouched down, and then gradually stole
towards the quarry until within easy shot. For
a few moments I could not help watching and
admiring his fine head, but it was a sad sight
too, for he was sorely stricken, as shown by the
way he drooped his head, only to raise it again,
as if fighting against the faintness that was over-
taking him. To put him at once out of his pain
I took careful aim for his neck and fired, and his
head fell to rise no more. With such a head my
forced return to the estate was softened con-
siderably. Perhaps, too, it was all for the best,
as a few days later I was taken with most
appalling ague, and one morning found I had
got "blackwater," which is most rare in India,
only following a long attack of fever. It was so
in my case, as, contracting fever in May of 1890,
I had had it off and on ever since, and had taken
no quinine to stop its inroads on my constitution.
How I rode thirty miles, travelled another forty
in a jutka to catch the train for Bangalore,
reaching there the following evening, remains a
mystery, as after seeing the doctor I fainted dead
away and hovered between life and death for
several days, so that I was packed off to the
Madras hospital under the care of a nurse. There
I promptly began to pick up and left the hospital
towards the end of March, so saturated with
quinine that reading was impossible, the letters
only showing as a blur.

On the 27th of December I brought my first

76 INDIAN BIG GAME

sambhur to book. How pleased I was ! There
was a favourite grass hill patched with jungle
here and there, where this grand deer likes to
lie up during the heat of the day. The hill was
only some three to four miles off, and on that
evening I was coming along the side about half-
way down, when my tracker espied some natives
passing the opposite side of a bit of jungle, thereby
giving their wind to anything that might have
lain up. Sure enough three sambhur bolted out,
running up the hill and turning towards us, so
we crouched down in the grass ; by good luck
they passed right above, but within shot of us,
so, picking out the only stag, I pulled off and saw
him jump forward only to disappear into a hollow,
where we found him stone dead ; a well-placed
bullet behind the left shoulder had terminated
his career. It was not a good head, but its being
the first of the kind goes a long way with the
beginner. The size of the animal, its long coarse
hair with neck-ruff standing out — a feature which
looks so well on a good mounted head — were all
points of interest. The feet make splendid jelly,
but the meat is decidedly coarse. The skins
tan into very decent leather for shooting-boots,
but are so soft that in wet weather the leather
gets soppy.

My first experience of tiger-shooting was
certainly the funniest. I am not sure of the date,
but know it occurred in this year (1891), so I will
relate what took place as a finish to this chapter.
The bridle-track to the Naad, which was made
more especially for the carriage of grain from the
low country for the purpose of feeding the

MY FIRST TIGER 77

coolies on the estate, was at the time of the
incident under repair. Every morning I rode
out to see how the work was getting on. It
must have been some time in November, towards
the end probably, as we did not repair roads until
after the heavy rains of the nor'-east monsoon.
Anyway, one morning I found the coolies — who
by that time were a good four to five miles off —
in a great state of excitement, declaring that they
had actually seen a tiger and that a cow had been
killed at Nelli Kather Hutte, where there was
a small Sholaga hamlet. Soon after a couple of
Sholagas turned up and confirmed the news. I
rode back to the estate to get my gun, rugs, and
food for a night's vigil. Dod Cara, a Sholaga,
volunteered to accompany me. He prided
himself upon being a professional shikari who
had taken numbers of sahibs out shooting, so
off we started in the afternoon. I reached the
hamlet, from which I took three or four men
to build a machan, and proceeded to the place
of the kill, which lay in a fine open spot ;
trees were very scarce, and the only available
one was a very pliant nelli tree, a species very
abundant in these parts, and from which the
hamlet took its name. Where there was no
choice, needs must, so I gave directions to build
the platform as quickly as possible — there not
being much time before darkness would overtake
us, except that there was a glorious moon, of
which I wished to take every advantage. I must
honestly confess that I knew nothing about tiger-
shooting at this period, least of all sitting up over
a kill, so when the work was finished I asked Dod

78 INDIAN BIG GAME

Cara if I should not sit up alone ; he scoffed at
the suggestion, and to my surprise told me that
he with two other Sholagas were going to share
the watch with me. I was taught a lesson that
night I never forgot, and ever since have insisted
upon sitting up alone or occasionally with one
other, though I hold to the former being the best,
i.e. by yourself. Nothing appeared for hours,
and at last Dod Cara volunteered to keep watch
while I took a snooze. Needless to say, we all
went off sound asleep. Some time later, it
appears, one of the men was roused by the
sound of bones being crunched, and looking
down saw the tiger enjoying his meal. Instead
of rousing me at once, he violently shook his
neighbour, and he in turn shook Dod Cara, by
which time the tree was swaying to such an
extent that the tiger looked up in astonish-
ment to see what was happening. By the time
Dod Cara had brought me out of dreamland,
the tiger was so appalled at the commotion that
all I saw was a tawny object with tail erect
vanishing out of sight as if the devil was after
him. Dod Cara shook his head mournfully, and
said there was no hope of the tiger's return. We
all went to sleep again, and the tiger returned and
dragged the carcase out of sight, and I went back
to the estate next morning a sadder but a wiser
man.

On the 19th of June 1892 I got my first jungle
sheep or barking deer. Many a time have I
stepped into the verandah of my bungalow to
listen to this deer's peculiar bark. The Sholagas
say he barks at the patter of his own feet in the

vn MY FIRST TIGER 79

leaves. When wounded, the male is a terrible
brute to cut up a dog.

On the 13th of November I secured my first
tiger, or rather tigress, and as with her I got a
magnificent stag sambhur whose horns measured
37 inches, it was a memorable day.

I left the little bungalow before daybreak
with my two favourite Sholaga trackers ; there
was a bright moon and a good path for the
greater part of the way to the plateau where I
intended stalking, so that by dawn we found
ourselves within half an hour's walk of our ground.
Here several freshly dug holes showed that bears
were about, and we proceeded more cautiously.
The foot of the hill was almost reached when
suddenly the clear, loud bell of a sambhur rang
out on our right ; a few seconds later, another
bell only a few hundred yards off ; and we crept
towards the spot, but had not moved far when
our steps were arrested by a crashing among
the bamboos, followed by a third cry from the
sambhur, but not a bell this time ; it was a hoarse,
long-drawn roar of pain and fear. " Something
has seized it," whispered the leading tracker, and
then they both muttered "A tiger!" I urged
them to go on, and as we started off, again there
came that awful cry from the sambhur. We
pushed on as noiselessly as possible till within
perhaps a hundred yards of the spot, when once
more, and for the last time, came this fearful
cry, such a cry as I had never heard in my life
before ; it made me shudder. Afterwards I
knew that it was the dying call of the poor stag
struggling hopelessly with his terrible adversary.

80 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

We were in a gorge that led up into the hills,
and the sound of this last cry, which was extra-
ordinarily loud and long, seemed to echo and re-
echo all round us, and to fairly fill the air. I saw
the two Sholagas look at each other perfectly
aghast. I believe they thought it was an evil
spirit. However, in the dead silence that ensued,
we pulled ourselves together and stealthily ap-
proached a large clump of bamboos, from which
we expected to see what was happening or to
look on what had already been done. On
reaching the clump the tracker Kanni-Madha
peered round, and then instantly crouched back,
saying, " Sir, sir, look at the tiger ! " I had felt
he was going to say that. Quietly I stepped
forward and took his place. I shall never forget
the sight I saw on looking round. There in a
little glade stood a grand tigress, quietly survey-
ing the body of the stag sambhur she had just
killed. As I raised my rifle I noticed that her
sides were heaving ; she was panting from the
exertions of the struggle. I pressed the trigger,
and she vanished. It was as if I had only
been gazing on the picture thrown by a magic-
lantern on a screen, so instantaneous was her
disappearance. But presently, and almost
before the smoke blew away, a sound of strug-
gling in the bamboos below us told that the
bullet had done its work. Well, we all got
pretty excited then. I know we went down to
her very carefully, and I fired a second shot
into her dead body to make sure, and then
heaved a big stone at her, and I remember
gently touching the glazing eye with a twig to

MY FIRST TIGER 81

be absolutely certain she was lifeless. I have
also a distinct recollection of hugging the great
round head in my ecstasy of delight, but if I
did anything else during the next half-hour, I
cannot recall it.

G

CHAPTER VIII

VARIOUS GAME :
MY BROTHER GORED BY A BISON

By C. W. G. Morris

On the 5th of April 1893 I shot a really fine
stag sambhur, fine, at least, for the district I
write about. It was at the same hollow where I
shot my first deer of this species. The great
difficulty about bagging sambhur is their reluct-
ance to being in the open by dayhght. In the
evening they generally came out when it was
almost dusk, and as for the mornings, only on
rare occasions have I been early enough to find
them in the open. On this particular occasion
I had determined to spend the night in the
vicinity, and long before daybreak, by a good
moon, had taken up my position within half a
mile of this favourite hollow, thinking that as I
was opposite a piece of jungle which I must
cross when the light was good enough, I might
possibly see a stag by moonlight. The sit-out
was very cold and very weird ; some ice birds
kept up their incessant call (so named because
their cry is just like the noise a pebble makes
when thrown on the ice), chuck, chuck, chucking
in the distance. Once a sambhur evidently got

82

cHAP.vm VARIOUS GAME 83

our wind and belled defiance. At last dawn began
to show, and we made a move down the slope to
cross the neck of jungle, listening very carefully,
as elephants were about at this time of year.
Hearing no sound, we picked our way through
the jungle, which, except for the light of the moon,
was almost pitch dark. We reached the grass hill
on the other side and proceeded very cautiously,
as there was still insufficient light to see for any
distance. We had not gone far when my man,
Naad Kerta, crouched down, pointing to the
side of the hill opposite us ; of course I at once
followed suit, and lay as low in the grass as
possible. I saw three doe sambhur already on
their way to cover, but looking inquisitively in
our direction. After a bit they began to " bell,"
stamping with their forefeet. By this time I
had taken my field-glasses, and was surveying
the hollow below, from which I knew the does
must have come. How my mouth did water as
I saw a small stag and one lordly fellow looking
up towards his harem ! but he, not having seen
the danger, refused to budge, so finally the does
trotted up the hill. We dared not move, but
anxiously waited, hoping the stag would follow
the does. This would have brought him into nice
range of my rifle. He had evidently made up
his mind to lie up by himself, as after a while
both stags moved off in the opposite direction,
and we had to lie low until they crossed a ridge.
Kerta whispered to me that the moment they
crossed we must run for all we were worth to get
ahead of them, but keeping on our side of the
ridge, so as to be out of sight until we reached a

84 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

certain point of the saddle, where we could get
a good view of the country. I handed my rifle
to my guide, so as to be hampered as little as
possible. When they finally disappeared, up
and off we went. How we did run ! At first
it was fairly easy going, partly down gradient to
a hollow, but the pace told on us when we had
to climb. At last we reached a point where
Kerta thought it was safe to cross cautiously and
crouching low. We took a careful survey of the
country behind, but saw nothing, so hastened on
to get a good view in front, but there was no sign
of our quarry. Kerta, absolutely blown, threw
himself on to the ground, saying he could go no
further, and, pointing to a small circle of shady
jungle, said that if the sambhur had not gone
right down hill towards the Naad, which was
unlikely, they must be in this patch. Taking
my rifle, I walked straight towards it as noise-
lessly as possible, but not attempting to conceal
myself, as I knew if the sambhur was lying up
there would be no attempt at budging until it
was clear I was making actually for the jungle.
I had only to cover a short distance which would
bring me within rifle range of any point from
which game might break. At last I got sufficiently
near, and stopped to listen ; hearing no sound,
I moved on a few steps, when I distinctly heard
the snap of a stick. This pulled me up short,
and next moment, hearing the rush of an animal,
I threw my rifle up, praying it might be the royal
head ; another second showed me that it was so,
and what a grand sight he presented as he swung
out with head in air ! Letting drive as he went

VARIOUS GAME 85

off, I had the satisfaction of seeing his hind-
quarters give way, my bullet hitting him in the
small of the back. I threw my hat up into the
air with joy, and, shouting for Kerta to come on,
rushed forward to give the stag the coup de grace.
Although the horns were not so long as those
the tigress got for me, they were very widespread.

On the 9th of April 1893 I had an extra-
ordinary day. I determined to visit the low
country, and we made such an early start, Kerta
and I, that we were in the Naad by sunrise. We
stalked all over the place, and it was getting
very hot, when we suddenly came on a nice stag
chital, paying delicate attentions to a doe. I
dropped him on the spot with a shot in the neck,
and with a scream of fright the doe dashed off.

Being more than satisfied, after having taken
the head off for preservation, I decided to have
lunch, so seeing a nice shady tree some distance
off, I told Kerta to follow me there. On reaching
this tree, which was on the bank of a dry river-
bed, I told Kerta to hand me my lunch. As I
spoke I heard a rustling below me ; we both peered
down, and caught a glimpse of a tiger slinking off.
The rustling commenced again ; this time I was
more prepared, and let drive at a second tiger,
which I wounded, but it was very nasty shooting
sheer below me with a lot of bushes intervening.
We both looked at each other in amazement,
to think of two tigers lying at our feet. Clamber-
ing down, we hunted round, and sure enough
found blood, but very little, and at last we had
to give up the quest in despair. On our way
home I secured a mountain antelope, and have

86 INDIAN BIG GAME

always looked back upon that as a record day,
when I saw two tigers, besides securing a chital
and an antelope.

My bag for 1894, while very small, had been
fairly productive of excitement. In March, for
instance, my record book shows the death of three
panthers and the wounding of a fourth.

Sitting up for a panther is not nearly so satis-
factory as for a tiger ; the former seems naturally
to look out for its enemy in a tree, and the number
of times I have been discovered and lost a shot
have made it most disheartening work. What has
always struck me is the marvellous way in which
" Spots " will creep up and appear suddenly
almost on to the kill. About a mile from the
bungalow by the short-cut, lay Gunguru Kanawe
(where Garstead now is), the latter word meaning
saddle, a place much frequented by tigers and
panthers, which come up the path that crosses
the saddle from the Malay Kadu into our hills.

During March, which is the hottest and driest
month of the year, the grass is nearly always
swept by fires, so that cattle become very poor
in condition ; each year generally claims a few
victims.

On the 10th of March a herdsman reported
that the previous evening he had been forced to
leave behind a cow which was too weak to follow
the herd to the kraal, and the next morning on
going to look her up he found a panther had seized
her. I went down to the place, chose a tree, and
gave instructions for a machan to be built. At
3 P.M. I again started for the place and found
everything had been done most satisfactorily.

VARIOUS GAME 87

Owing to the amount of dry leaves about, I made
sure I would easily hear any animal on the move,
but kept a careful look out. Suddenly, before
sunset, without a sound to warn me of the ap-
proach, I saw a panther close up to the kill ;
how it stepped over the leaves so silently was a
marvel, but there was the brute within shot, and
I did not take long to get a line on to it, and
number one was mine — a female.

I left the cow there, telling the Sholagas that
they must report at once if anything came. For
three days the carcase was unmolested, but on
the 14th it was reported that the body had been
visited during the night, so off I started again.
I think there is nothing more sickening than
having to sit over a kill that has been dead some
days; the stench is awful. Anyway, another
female panther was added to the list. On the
17th one got off wounded, and on the 19th the
third fell to my rifle — this time a male and of fair
size, measuring from tip of tail to nose 7 feet.

On the 15th of April I went down to the low
country (Naad) for a few days' shoot, and took
with me a 12-bore rifle, which a planter, who was
great on Meade's shells {i.e. explosive bullets), had
lent me in exchange for my own rifle, as he
wanted to try the accuracy of my -450 and
Lyman's sight. It was a bad day for me that I
exchanged rifles and, worse still, used Meade's
shells, which are, I think, much too light to pene-
trate if any great resisting object is met. When
I reached my camp, a local native told me that a
tiger had seized a cow, and, from the tracks at a
pool of water, it looked as if two tigers had been

88 INDIAN BIG GAME

guilty of the deed. After breakfast I started for
the scene of the kill, and found that the body had
been dragged into a thicket, so that it was com-
pletely hidden from view. Selecting a good tree
for the machan, I had the cow dragged to the
open, and left word how to erect the platform,
returning myself to camp to get over the heat
of the day.

Between 3 and 4 p.m., I proceeded once more
to the place, and, finding everything in order,
clambered into my perch, dismissing the shikaris
with instructions to return on hearing my gun
fired. About 5 o'clock, while the sun was still
fairly warm, I heard the sound of a heavy
animal forcing its way through the under-
growth, and from the noise never dreamt that it
was a tiger, although it came from the direction
in which I expected the tiger to appear. I had
not long to wait ere the animal appeared in view,
and it was the tiger, and a huge one too. It had
passed the place where the cow had been, and
pulled up just inside the edge of the thicket. On
seeing its meal, which was securely tied to a
tree, it gave a grunt and sprang a little back ;
as my eyes instinctively followed its movements,
I espied a smaller tiger — I should say a tigress —
just behind its mate, so there were two ! I could
not get a shot at the bigger animal, owing to
trees and bushes hiding the vulnerable spot,
so had to bide my time. At last he moved
a little forward exposing his shoulder. I took
careful aim and fired, flooring him on the spot.
I made absolutely sure of having bagged him,
and when his mate jumped right out into the

VARIOUS GAME 89

open and paused to see why her spouse was
making such a row — as he certainly was, tearing
the ground up and biting anything in his way — I
clean forgot I had a second barrel, and might at
least have made sure of one if not two tigers, for
she exposed the whole of her left side in the most
tempting manner ; I never fired, and she bolted.
I could not fire at the wounded one, as the
moment he fell the undergrowth concealed him, so
I had to await further developments. Finally, he
recovered his feet and came floundering straight
for, and passed under, my tree. To be perched on
a machan and try to shoot right below is most
difficult, and my bullet just hit the ground behind
him, exploding with a loud clap. Why prolong
this harassing tale ! I saw no more of that tiger
from that day to this, although I followed up
the tracks next day, but the ground was burnt
as hard as a brick and the blood soon ceased.
Moral : Do not use a light Meade's shell on the
shoulder of a tiger. Undoubtedly the bullet
exploded on the surface ; of course, if I had got in
behind the shoulder, between his ribs, the shell
would have done its work. I returned to the
estate vowing I would never use other than my
own rifle in future.

In December I left my brother, to join an
estate in the Mysore district, to learn planting
under other conditions ; after coffee, I was now
to see cardamom and pepper planting.

I had been there barely four months when, on
the 25th of April, I got an urgent telegram telling
me my brother was dying, having been gored by
a bison, and I must come at once.

90 INDIAN BIG GAME chap, vm

I travelled night and day, by bullock cart,
train, and horseback, and was back to the hills I
knew so well within four days. My brother was
alive, but a terrible wreck, the horn of the bison
having caught him in the back, penetrating his
right lung and smashing two or three ribs, one of
which had to be taken out as a floating bone.
Thanks to the kind offices of the R.A.M.C, Ban-
galore, who heard that no civilian doctor could be
spared to stay with him, Captain S. took leave,
and spent it beside my brother, thereby saving
his life ; his chief, then Major L., had arranged
the matter for us. I left for Mysore territory
again about the end of May, with the knowledge
that my brother was out of danger, and on the
understanding that I was to take over the estate
during his enforced absence to recuperate from
the shock.

CHAPTER IX

BEAR, BISON, SAMBHUR, AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

By C. W. G. Morris

During April 1896 I was doing some road-tracing
with a chum of mine, Francis F., and we had
a very jolly time together, not unmixed with
excitement.

On the evening of the 3rd of April, after a hot
day's tracing, we decided to have a look round
for sambhur, as the hills, especially on the east
side of the road, were favourite resorts. There
was a long range of mountains stretching north
and south, which meant very stiff climbing to
reach the best haunts. We climbed up together
about half the distance, when, by mutual agree-
ment, he went to the right and I held to the left.
I had just reached a nullah where the jungle from
the top gradually tapered to about the width of
the ravine. My Sholaga had selected a narrow
part where the crossing would be easier, and
we were pausing to hear if any animal was on
the move, as elephants were always wandering
about here ; we had listened barely a breath-
ing space, when I heard a great noise of
some animal shuffling down towards us, inside
the jungle. I at once exclaimed " elephants "

91

92 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

in a whisper, but after listening carefully my
shikari said "No, it's a bear; be ready, it is
coming towards us." Fortunately the jungle
at the spot we had selected was so narrow
that no animal could pass without being seen.
I was tremendously excited, as so far I had not
bagged a full-grown bear, and I made up my mind
my chance had come. A few moments decided it,
and out walked a huge male bear within twenty
yards of me, a splendid broadside shot, and I let
him have it square behind the left shoulder. With
a fearful roar he seemed literally to roll out of
sight ; we waited a moment, but hearing no
noise went cautiously inside the cover and found
the bear stone dead. To say I was pleased was
putting it mildly, as to bag a bear within half an
hour of having left camp was quite unlooked-
for luck. Poor old Francis returned without
having seen a thing.

On the 9th he and I went off together
in the direction I had gone on that memor-
able evening. We had covered about three-
quarters of the distance, when the guide drew our
attention to two bears coming along the face of
the hill towards us. We hastily arranged a plan
of action, which was that Francis should take the
front bear, but not until the other had come
into view. The bears came along quite un-
suspectingly, and we were both ready for them —
I with a 12-bore and Meade's shells, worse luck,
and he his D.B. -450 Express. Both bears came
into view, and as I was taking aim, bang went
Francis's rifle from behind me, which made me
jump, so I had to take aim again, the bears coming

IX BEAR, BISON, AND SAMBHUR 93

on unharmed ; bang again from Francis, and
both bears were practically on the top of us,
kicking up a most awful row. The Sholaga was
already half-way up a tree, and I heard Francis
shout, " Fire, fire, Charlie, they are on us." By
this time the bears were just level with me, with
no intention of turning. I plugged one of them,
when with roars they started biting each other,
and as they turned I let drive again. It was
most disastrous, and I swore I would never use
Meade's shells again, as, though blood was show-
ing and I followed them up to noon of the next
day, we did not account for either.

On the 17th I bagged my biggest bull of the
trip. We had started very early in the morning,
and had no sooner got to the top of a hill
than Madha espied a bull bison. I took my
glasses and looked carefully all round, but could
only see the one, so decided it must be a
solitary, and if so, an extremely fine one from
its size. Solitaries, too, are always old bulls
which are driven out of the herd by males that
are more in their prime. The following-up and
bagging of a solitary is far and away the cream
of bison shooting, as one has to deal with an
irascible old curmudgeon, and then again there
is no chance of having one's labour spoilt by a
cow discovering one, as so often happens in
following a herd.

Madha led the way with unerring intuition,
and soon brought me on the track of our quarry.
Pointing ahead, he signed to me to crouch down,
and led me to a rock, behind which I hid, and on
carefully looking over I saw a sight that made

94 INDIAN BIG GAME

me wonder if the place was not a bit too hot for
me, as there was my bull throwing up the dust
with his horns, and coming, as it appeared to me,
straight for my place of concealment, tossing
his head from side to side, with every manifesta-
tion of wrath. I, of course, concluded he had
seen our crouching forms as we crept up to the
rock. Anyway, I was prepared for him, and just
let him come on to within a few paces. The
only target he offered was his broad forehead,
and I let him have it straight in the centre with
my Ubique, bringing him down on to his knees.
He recovered almost at once, and commenced
staggering round as if he were drunk, evidently
dazed and stupid from the shock, so I livened him
up with the left behind the shoulder, when off
he lumbered. Hastily loading, I hurried forward,
and found myself literally surrounded by bison,
while Madha was warning me to take care, and
trying to attract my attention to another bull.
This explained the extraordinary behaviour of my
bull. Just before we had got up to him, a herd
must have come in his direction, and the old
fellow wished to dispute possession of the herd.
On our right was a hollow which had concealed
the herd from our view.

We were yet to see a still stranger thing !
The herd, with tails in air, had charged down
the hill and disappeared out of sight, but as
we advanced to look for the wounded bull, a
wonderful sight met our eyes. There was the
herd bull — having forsaken his harem — deliber-
ately horning the wounded fellow off the place.
My bull, with the other one close on his heels,

IX BEAR, BISON, AND SAMBHUR 95

was passing just below me, offering a beautiful
broadside shot, so I fired a right and left in quick
succession, both bullets taking effect, and off
he dashed, the other one still following him.
They both made for a heavily wooded nullah.
The first bull evidently pulled up there, but we
saw the other cross the river-bed and mount the
open on the opposite side. It was ticklish work
when we reached the bank, as it was densely
wooded, and the wounded animal might be in
wait anywhere. There was no good hesitating,
as our only means of locating him — apart from
actually following his tracks, which would have
been most dangerous work in such cover — was
to cross to the other side, where the ground was
very steep, thereby enabling us to look down into
the bed of the river. We got across all right, and
were not long in locating him. Evidently hearing
us, he moved out, and on firing, I distinctly heard
the smack of the bullet as if hitting a brick wall.
He faced round on me with the evident intention
of being aggressive, but the steep incline he had to
negotiate before he could reach me was evidently
too much for him after the severe buffeting he
had had, so he turned off down-stream and dis-
appeared out of view ; and that was the last
bullet he got, as soon afterwards he was in his
death-throes. He was a splendid fellow, his horn
measurements being :

From tip to tip round outer edge and

across forehead . . . 6 ft. 6 in.

Across the sweep . . . . 3 „ 2 ,,

Circumference at base . . . 1 ,, 9 ,,

Between tips . . . . . 1 „ 9| „

96 INDIAN BIG GAME

One of the strangest things imaginable hap-
pened to me on the 9th of January 1898. As it
is quite cold at this time of the year even in
the low country, accompanied by very heavy
dews (which, with the long grass, add to the
chilliness after the rains), it is quite common
to find deer basking at sunrise, before they
retire to cover for the day. This Sunday,
the 9th, taking advantage of a moon, I made
such an early start for the Naad, that I
reached the low country, a good eight miles
off, by sunrise, and I left the bridle - track
to look for game. I had not proceeded far,
when my Sholaga, Kanni - Madha, pulled up,
pointing to one side, and I saw the antlers
and head of a stag sambhur lying down, sunning
himself. I was at the time using a D.B.
•450 Express of Francis F.'s. I took careful
aim and fired. Not knowing exactly what had
happened, owing to the smoke, I took a few
paces forward, when I saw, as I thought, the
sambhur in the same position, except that his
ears were pricked back, as if trying to catch
the direction of the sound ; so again taking aim,
I fired the left barrel. This time I distinctly
saw the head fall forward, so hastened to the
spot. Imagine my astonishment when I found
two stags stone dead, each with a hole in the head,
and lying so close that they were touching each
other. They had been facing different ways,
which, I suppose, accounts for the fact that when
the first one was killed, the other one did not
realize what had happened. Fortunately, it being
bazaar day, I was able to get any number of

BEAR, BISON, AND SAMBHUR 97

coolies, and had the two sambhur carried up
entire to the estate, presenting one of them to
the headman to distribute amongst the coohes
as their perquisite.

On 9th January I shot a panther under rather
pecuhar circumstances. These animals are great
pests to stock, and had been worrying round a
great deal. I borrowed a goat, fortunately as
it turned out, a white one. The moon was good,
but the sky a bit cloudy, and as I had already
sat up four nights in succession, during one of
the intervals when the moon became obscured
by cloud, I shut my eyes to give them a rest, as
the strain and want of sleep were beginning to
be felt in them. I had barely remained five
minutes like this when suddenly I heard a
choking cry from the goat. Looking in the
direction, I saw in the dim light the goat being
shaken by some unseen power. I fired straight
for the white, and, except that it seemed to
collapse, I heard no sound. I could still see a
white patch, and fired again, but no sign or
sound. I then clambered down from the tree —
one does not seem to think till afterwards what
might have happened if a wounded tiger or
panther had been there — and walked up with
rifle in hand and found a panther stone dead,
with arms still clasped round the dead goat.
The bullet had gone clean through them both.
My second shot, too, had found its billet. I called
up the Sholagas, whom I had told to wait within
sound of my rifle, and had the panther carried
up to my bungalow, which I reached by 10 o'clock,
and how glad I was to get a good night's rest !

H

98 INDIAN BIG GAME

I had been out one afternoon while it was
raining, and as we were stalking along we heard,
about a mile behind us, the humph-humph of a
tiger, so retraced our steps, with the hope we
might see the game-killer, as we felt sure it must
be the same one that had killed a chital, the
devoured remains of which we had found a few
days before. We found ourselves rapidly getting
nearer, to judge by the greater volume of sound.
At last the noise was so close to us, we knew it was
a mere question of which would see the other first,
the tiger or ourselves. All at once the Sholaga
clutched me, pulling me to one side and pointing
through some bamboo. There I saw the tiger,
half crouched, but looking away from us in the
direction of the river, which flowed close by.
To make more certain of my aim I took a
long bamboo stick from the Sholaga on which
to rest my rifle. I took deliberate aim and fired.
The tiger bounded off, and following his flight
with my rifle, I let drive the left barrel at him.
I could not believe my ears when my tracker
said I had missed the first shot, but thought
I had got in on the second. I went straight
to the place where the tiger had been crouching,
which was easily found by the flattened grass,
and there found my bullet had thrown up the
earth right under the animal. I was completely
mystified, and felt so sure of my aim that I went
back to where I had stood, leaving the Sholaga
to mark the place of the couchant tiger, and
took aim again. Then I saw what had happened,
for right in front of my rifle, a few yards ahead,
was a twig of bamboo freshly cut by the bullet.

BEAR, BISON, AND SAMBHUR 99

The elevation of my rifle to the place where the
branch was cut was in direct line with the middle
of the tiger, and at least a foot to 18 inches above
where my bullet had actually hit the ground.
We then followed up to where the tiger had
disappeared into the bamboo, and found again
the Sholaga had been correct, as undoubtedly,
from the blood, my left barrel had got home
somewhere, but after missing such an easy
standing shot, I had very little hope of having
hit a vital spot when the animal was in headlong
flight. It was almost dark anyway, and more than
ever so in the dense bamboo cover, so we marked
the place, determined to follow up the next day.

In the morning we took up the tracks and
came to where the wounded tiger had crossed
the river, which was quite shallow. On the
opposite bank it had lain down where we found
the bamboo leaves stained with blood, but from
there we could find no further trace, and event-
ually had to give the search up.

I sailed for home in May and had a great good
time of it, though it took a long while to rub the
strangeness off, as I had not been home for thirteen
years.

My great ambition while in England was to get
a couple of good rifles built to me, one being a
much-cherished -577 D.B. Magnum, firing 7 drams
of powder — as I had been fully convinced by Sir
Samuel Baker's book, that of all weapons a -577
Express was the most reliable. I also had a D.B.
•303 built to me, which, with my Ubique shot and
ball, I reckoned would enable me to hold my own
with any game.

100 INDIAN BIG GAME cnAP.ix

After my return, the end of October, I did
very little shooting, just sufficient to test my
rifles. On Christmas Day I bagged a jungle
sheep or barking deer, which latter very nearly
did for " Bully," my bull terrier. I had wounded
the sheep, and my dog, which I always had led at
heel, broke away and took up the tracks and soon
commenced to bay some distance ahead. When
I reached the place the sight that met my eyes
was horrible. There were " Bully " and the deer
facing each other — the former dripping in his own
blood and great flaps of skin dangling from his
side and belly. Even as I reached them I saw
the enraged sheep butt forward, bowling the dog
over, and before he could recover, cutting down
at him with the two long tushes that are situated
on each side of the upper jaw. " Bully " stuck to
his guns like a good one, and only lay down,
utterly done from loss of blood, after I had
grassed his antagonist. I thought I would never
get the dog back to camp, as his bowels were
exposed in two places, besides his being covered
with wounds on the back, shoulders, and every-
where. On reaching the camp I had the worst
wounds sewn up, and putting him into my
mosquito curtain, hammockwise, had him carried
up to the estate. In about a month's time he
was as keen and well as ever, and not the least
cowed by his bad treatment, as he tackled several
jungle sheep and got wounded twice again; but
I think it made him a trifle more cautious.

CHAPTER X

LUCK AT LAST WITH TIGER

By C. W. G. Morris

In 1899 my favourite trackers, Kanni-Madha
and his brother Kanni - Jeddial, had left the
estate to start on a " Podu " or clearing of their
own, so I had engaged by an advance of pay a
Sholaga, KwoUa, with whom I had wonderful
luck.

I started for camp on 2nd April for my month's
leave, which I get once a year and always spend in
the jungle. I had great hopes when I started,
as I was going to hitherto unexplored places away
to the east, but I soon discovered it was the
wrong time of year, so on the 14th of April returned
to my old haunts, very sorry that I had wasted
all these precious days and had nothing to show
for them. This was, however, the turning-point
of my bad luck.

On 16th I shot a tigress with cubs. On
examination she proved to be blind in one eye,
and I picked out of the eyeball and skull some
thirty No. 6 shot. The cubs escaped.

On the 17th of July I was very lucky in bagging
a panther, which had at last got the nickname of
the " Rogue," as he had been too cunning for us

101

102 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

all, but on the above-mentioned date I got news
of a kill by him, so sent two Sholagas to mark
the spot and to come back with the news. I then
arranged for one man to post me above the kill,
while the other walked up from below. I was put
on a grand open level piece of ground some
twenty-two yards only from the victim, which was
in a ditch just above our bandy road, and as the
custom of this panther was to eat all he could in
the daytime, then leave the carcase and kill again,
I hoped he would be enjoying his mid-day meal.
I had barely been in position five minutes when
I heard a cracking of the undergrowth coming
towards me, and next moment out trotted Mr.
Spots to within ten paces, and on seeing me he
pulled up short ; but I gave him no time to think
what his next move would be, as I sent a bullet
from my " Ubique " fair into his chest and bowled
him over. He was one of the finest panthers I
have ever shot or seen, measuring, as he lay, 7J
feet, and with a neck circumference of 24 inches.

The 30th of July will ever remain in my mind
as the day of one of the most exciting adventures
I have ever had.

A part of the low country where game is fairly
plentiful, though much shot over now, is within
easy reach of us, and very often I run down on
the Saturday evening, to return on Sunday after a
morning's stalk.

As good rain had fallen I did not care to lose
such a favourable opportunity, so packed my
kit and reached one of my shooting huts late in
the evening in pouring rain, and with the roof
leaking like a sieve ; but I made the best of matters

X LUCK AT LAST WITH TIGER 103

and got quite chirpy when a Sholaga of a neigh-
bouring village came to say that in the afternoon,
as he was coming home, he heard a strange noise,
like wild cats quarrelling, and on going towards
the sound he was nearly frightened out of his
life by a tiger springing out on him, and that the
noise, he was sure, was from tiger cubs, and he
would take me to the place in the morning. That
night I got very little sleep from thinking about
it, and was up at 3.30 a.m., and before 5 a.m. had
roused my tracker and the man who was to show
the tigress. On our way I heard a noise in the
grass, and the Sholagas said it was a bear, so I
went close up to it, but owing to the long grass
could only discern a small patch of black, so I
judged a shot, and, as is the rule in such cases,
missed, much to my disgust, as it was a fine big
fellow. The Sholagas wanted me to have a
stalk after chital first, but I insisted upon being
taken to the haunts of the tigress.

Certainly on arriving at the place there were
evident signs of the truth of the man's statement,
but having been disturbed the evening before, of
course she had departed with her young ones ;
however, her night tracks were quite discernible
on the soft ground after the rain, so we followed
up for about a mile — I, like a fool, with no weapon
in my hand, having given my rifles to the Sholagas
to carry. Suddenly I was startled by a loud
roar, and out jumped a big tigress from some
longish grass, but before I could collar my rifle
she had disappeared behind some cover ; but she
would not leave the vicinity, as I could tell by
her growls, so I tried to get a shot at her by

104 INDIAN BIG GAME

dodging in and out of the bamboo, and twice
came to close quarters, when she saluted us
with angry roars, but never showed herself, as
the undergrowth and bamboo were very thick.
At last I got tired of this sort of work and pro-
posed to my men that we should visit the patch
of grass where she first showed herself, and see
if the cubs were really there ; so back we went,
and had not gone far into the grass when the
Sholagas exclaimed, " Here are her cubs, sir."
I just caught a glimpse of one or two woolly things
in the grass when I heard a growl from behind
me, followed by an ear-splitting roar, from the
tigress, which sent the men running back. In-
stinctively I faced round, but when I saw her
come charging down on to me with mouth open,
emitting savage grunts, I thought it was all up,
as I could not believe she would leave me alone
now that I was standing by myself beside her
cubs. As she came on I heard the Sholagas
behind me yelling for all they were worth to scare
her from me ; but she never paused in her rush
till she was within a few feet of me. I was so
petrified I had no more idea of firing than the
man in the moon, simply depending upon frighten-
ing her by holding my ground, when she swerved
clean round, still at the same speed, and galloped
back on the track she came. I beckoned to the
men to come on with my other rifle, and followed
her, with the hope that she might be visible, but
there was not a sign ; so we then got to the other
side of the cubs by a roundabout way, on some
higher ground, and finally I decided to get up a
tree that was immediately overlooking the cubs ;

'0 . ¥rrf-'

I

LUCK AT LAST WITH TIGER 105

but first I sent a man up, intending to hand him
one of my guns and climb up after him. Hardly,
however, had he got well up the tree when
Stripes came charging at us again, and this time
I made up my mind to give it her. She did just
the same as before, coming close up and swinging
round and running back, so I up with my -577
and took a snap-shot, and saw her heave to one
side, and the fellow up the tree swore she rolled
over. Anyway, we found blood and followed up,
and having presently fixed her position, I got
up a tree overlooking the place where she lay,
which I could tell by occasional shaking of the
undergrowth, and gave her a right and left. She
moved on after each shot, so I went to another
place and finished her with a right and left of my
" Ubique."

We then went back to the nursery and caught
her three cubs alive. I should say they were
about three weeks old, eyes open, but no teeth ;
their claws, though, were very sharp, as my
hands could testify when feeding them.

This tigress had a much finer and longer set
of teeth than the one shot in April.

On Saturday, 26th August, I could not resist
the temptation to try my luck again, so packed,
and was off to the same hut as before, but this
time it had been re-thatched, so no fear of leak-
ages to damp my ardour.

En route down the ghat I saw a fine old bull
bison lying in the grass enjoying a siesta ; if
only he had stayed there I would almost certainly
have bagged him, but, as it was, before I could get
within shot, he had got up and was moving off,

106 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

stern towards me. The grass at this time of year
is too long to follow bison, so I had to let him go.

Sunday morning I was up and on my way
to the stalking ground before daylight.

As objects became visible, I was much better
pleased with the appearance of the country than
last time, as, by the greenness of the grass and
refreshed look about the trees, I could see that
there had been good rain lately, and I felt quite
hopeful of seeing game about. It was so early
that the pea-fowl had not yet ventured to leave
their nightly perch, and hearing one not far off,
I slipped a shot cartridge into my right barrel
and made towards him, but he was much too
vigilant, and flew off before I could get within
shot — a good thing, too, as it turned out, for
there was much nobler game not far off, which
would have been disturbed if I had fired. I left
the shot cartridge in the barrel, but took the
precaution to lower the hammer so as not to be
taken unawares, as I think most sportsmen will
find that they instinctively fire the right barrel
first. And my solitary tracker (I never care to
take more than one man, as the fewer the people
the less noise) had not proceeded far when we
heard a great screeching of monkeys, and I said
there must be one of the feline tribe on the prowl.
We did not hurry ourselves, but just sauntered
in and out of the thickets, always edging towards
the uproar, which came from the banks of a
stream that is running at this time of the year.
We had got almost alongside the bamboo fringing
the bank when what should I see but a huge tiger
marching through the bamboo towards us, just

LUCK AT LAST WITH TIGER 107

like the monarch of the jungle that he was, and
offering a lovely broadside shot. Before even
my gun-bearer saw him I had my Ubique on him,
and took a beautiful sight on his left shoulder
and pulled the trigger, but no response from my
weapon. For one brief second I lowered my
rifle, and then remembered it was the left barrel
I must fire. This time my aim was much quicker
and, I knew, not so good ; the tiger had come
to a standstill, evidently observing my tracker,
who had moved a pace or two ahead of me
before he caught sight of Stripes.

I fired, and heard the thud of the bullet
striking him somewhere. The tiger sprang round,
and somehow went between two upright bamboos
not wide enough apart to let a man squeeze
through sideways. With a grin of satisfaction
the shikari pointed out some blood-stained fat
smeared on the right-hand bamboos, thus showing
that the bullet had gone through him, which
was natural, as I had fired a solid conical ; and
we found him stretched dead a little further off.

A cub belonging to the blind tigress I shot in
April was afterwards brought to me by a native.
It seems the cub broke into the goat kraal one
night, killed a goat, but was hazy as to where to get
out. The herdsman, hearing a commotion, came
out of his hut and found the intruder, which he shot.

The cub had still its milk teeth, so could not
have been more than a year or eighteen months
old, and no doubt fell an easy victim owing to
the loss of its mother.

Two of the three tiger cubs I captured, died ;
the third throve, and is in the Lai Bagh Gardens

108 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

at Bangalore, and is known as " Jimmy," short
for Jemimah — I suppose as a mark of sex.

I kept her for at least six months, and we
were great friends. When she grew older I let
her come out on a chain, and she used to follow
me with my dogs.

Tiger cubs are very expensive animals to
feed. I used to buy a batch of half a dozen
cattle at a time, and kill one as required, about
once a week. I always half boiled the meat to
prevent her learning the taste of blood. Even
then one had to keep away from her when she
was feeding. One day I walked into the spare
room of my bungalow where I kept her, just
after a haunch of beef had been handed to her
ladyship, as I wished to see how she would behave.
She snarled at me, and when I put my foot near
the meat she struck out at it with all her claws
extended, driving them right into my boot.

On the 29th of March, 1900, I shot a bear
under rather peculiar circumstances.

It seems, as the herdsman was grazing the
cattle some distance from my bungalow, he
found the fresh tracks of a bear leading into a
cave, and at once sent up for me. Taking a
spare Sholaga with me, I proceeded to the place,
and found undoubted signs of a bear having gone
into the cave. The mouth of the cave was so
low that a man could only enter by going in
bear-fashion, on all-fours. I stooped down and
peered in, and could distinctly hear the breathing
of an animal, so I ordered the men to bring me
a long pole, intending to poke the brute up and
get a shot if it made for the entrance. The

'JIMMY.'

LUCK AT LAST WITH TIGER 109

cave was on the slope of a hill, so by standing a
little downhill I could get on a level with the
cave entrance. Fortunately Bruin had evidently
gorged himself on honey, and felt very disinclined
to budge out of his cool quarters into the glare
of a hot March day, but he objected to being
nudged in the ribs by my stick, and shifted
sufficiently from his place to give me the oppor-
tunity of a shot, which I took most promptly.
It was followed by truly bearish roars, and I can
assure you a wounded bear can make a most
horrible row. Still he would not face the open,
and to crawl in and face a wounded bear, with no
elbow-room to spare, was a bit too warm for my
liking. I decided, therefore, to see if smoking
him out of his lair would not have the desired
effect. Even that did not succeed, so I then
had a torch tied to the end of a pole and pushed
in towards the sluggard. The result was in-
stantaneous. Out he came, and bang went my
gun, and he rolled over stone dead, right into the
fire, but we soon rolled him out of that to save
his coat.

The bagging of that bear must have taken me
the best part of six hours, with excitement the
whole time, so that I was jolly tired when it was
over. A bear is a nasty thing to tackle, and
particularly so when one is single-handed.

This was a year of odd happenings, just
showing how one never knows what one may meet
when after the most ordinary game.

About a couple of miles below my bungalow
there was an old abandoned coffee nursery. The
undergrowth at the time had not got very thick.

110 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

and the path to and through it was still quite
good. Jungle sheep are very fond of places of
this sort, so on the evening of the 9th of April
I took a Sholaga with me and my '303 and
Ubique — the latter with only three rounds of
ball on principle, as I was only going with the
idea of possibly seeing a jungle sheep. I told the
syce to bring my pony to a given spot on the
bridle-track, which was very steep, the last part
needing zigzags to reach the top. Off the Sholaga
and I sallied down this bridle - track until we
reached the path leading away to the nursery.
As we reached the clearing, we went very slowly
and cautiously, hoping to see the red form of a
jungle sheep feeding. On and on we went, our
hopes rapidly diminishing as we neared the end
of the open. We had just left the nursery with
our faces turned homewards, intending to strike
the main road a little below where my pony was
to be and not half a mile off, when the Sholaga
and I both noticed perfectly fresh tracks of a
solitary bison, so fresh in fact that the Sholaga
whispered that he must be just ahead of us. The
sun had set, and in another quarter of an hour it
would be too dark to shoot, so my anxiety to make
full use of the daylight left can be imagined. We
followed the tracks easily and quickly, as the
mango showers had fallen and the earth was soft.
After following a bit, we paused to look ahead ;
immediately on my right I noticed a shelf of
rock below which the ground sloped to a hollow.
Instinct or something drew me to this shelf, and
I walked up to it very cautiously so that only my
head would show as the view below enlarged and

LUCK AT LAST WITH TIGER 111

I neared the spot. What luck that I should have
gone in that direction ! as before I reached the
rock I saw a huge bull looking up at me in surprise ;
next moment I surprised him still more by getting
him fair behind the shoulder, and put a left
into him before he got out of sight. Then
followed ten minutes of the most exciting time
imaginable, as I followed hot on the bull's heels,
so closely it is a wonder he left me alone ; once
he certainly did meditate a charge, as, with much
noise and breaking of the undergrowth, he faced
round in my direction, but the Sholaga dragged
me behind a tree out of sight. It was getting so
dark that it was almost impossible to discern what
was animate and what not ; in fact, once when I
was uncertain as to whether the object I saw was
a rock or the bison, I deliberately broke some
sticks underfoot, knowing that if it was the
bison, he would move. The noise had the desired
effect and I fired. I think I fired three more
shots after the first left and right. For the last
shot it was so dark that I could not see the
foresight of my rifle and distinctly saw the flash
of the explosion. By this time we were quite
near to the road and we judged the bull had
crossed, so as it was too dark and dangerous to
follow on, especially as the direction led into
thicker cover, I decided to let well alone and take
up the tracks next morning. I found my syce
petting and stroking my Arab, as he was very
excited over the noise of firing. The groom
was a grizzle-bearded old Mahommedan of long
standing in my service, and thought nothing of
having to wait till dark for his master's arrival.

112 INDIAN BIG GAME

Good old Hussain, I wonder whether he is still
alive ! no better syce has ever served me.

Next morning we made an early start and kept
to the bridle-track till we clearly saw the hoof-
marks of the bison crossing it. Within a couple
of hundred yards of the road we found the bull
stone dead ; he had evidently lain down soon after
we gave up the chase and never rose again.

On the 10th of May I got a fairly big male
panther and very nearly had an accident to my
Sholaga. I had wounded the panther the evening
before, and feeling sure he was dead, picked up
on my way quite a boy Sholaga by the name of
Chick (i.e. little) Massana. We easily found the
tracks, and after following a bit, noticed the
animal had vomited up the previous meal.
While I was looking curiously at this, Massana
wandered ahead, and I was suddenly roused from
my cogitations as to where the bullet had got
the panther, by hearing a shriek from the boy.
I looked ahead and saw the panther crouching
in a ditch in the act of springing on the Sholaga ;
my aim was instantaneous and fortunately true,
catching him fair in the shoulder, thereby crump-
ling him on the spot, and to make quite sure of no
further attempt at attack I followed up quickly
with a left before he could recover. I scolded
the boy severely for going ahead, pointing out to
him what might have happened if I had missed.

The ground being fairly open and only grass,
the boy had fortunately seen the animal in time,
as no doubt the brute was lying low with the hope
of being stumbled over, in which case one of us
would have been mauled.

CHAPTER XI

MY RECORD BISON AND A COUPLE OF TIGERS

By C. W. G. Morris

I SPENT a long time in South Africa on the
Zambesi, in the very thick of game, but as I wish
to write here entirely on Indian sport, I will not
touch on my adventures in Africa.

I had been very seedy, getting continued
attacks of malaria, which culminated in "black-
water," so I was forced to take sick-leave.

In December of 1905 my leave had still to
run till May following, so, as the home winter
was a bit too damp and cold for a constitution
somewhat disordered by malaria and a long
residence in such a hot climate as the Zambesi, I
took advantage of an invitation from a very old
Indian friend to spend the Indian winter with him.

I landed at Bombay, and arrived at Telli-
cherry on the 11th.

I had a rare good time at Tellicherry, and felt
as jolly as a sand-boy at finding myself back in
India. Mr. and Mrs. L. both combined to make
me feel thoroughly at home, and the two weeks I
spent on the coast were filled up with a con-
tinued round of dinners, etc. We had to return
to Tellicherry from a sea-fishing trip we took, as

113 I

114 INDIAN BIG GAME

Mr. L. had to represent the Madras Forest Depart-
ment at the Mysore kheddah operations, which
were taking place shortly in honour of the Prince
and Princess of Wales's visit to Mysore. I was
to go as Mr. L.'s guest.

On the 3rd of February we made our way back
to Madras territory.

My first destination was M , to which I

had to transport myself and kit in a couple of
carts, arriving there on the morning of the 20th
of February.

A planter, with proverbial hospitality, had
supplied me with a couple of shikaris. After a
light repast, I strolled out to explore the place,
but returned feeling rather disheartened, as only
a few old tracks were to be seen. Fortunately a
forest guard came to my rescue and sent for two
local men, who had been in at the death of several
bison. At 3 p.m. I again set out in an opposite
direction, and on reaching the top of a hill, one
of the shikaris turned to me saying, " This is the
only place where bison are to be found at this
season." We followed a path through some dense
jungle, crossed some grass land, and had just
entered another shola (wooded jungle) when we
heard some heavy beasts crash off. The men
hurried me forward to the open country on the
other side, with the evident hope of seeing the
bison emerge, but the herd must have turned and
kept to the forest, so we struck a path higher up
and made our way carefully back, hoping to hear
or cut them off. We finally reached the out-
skirts above the spot where we first entered, with-
out seeing or hearing them. While surveying

XI MY RECORD BISON 115

the open country, one of the men excitedly
attracted my attention to a dark object grazing
in the open, on the side of a hill about a mile
off, which, owing to the size, led me to believe it
must be an elephant, but the shikari declared it
was a solitary bull bison, and my glasses soon
satisfied me that such was the case.

By this time it was close upon sundown, and
my one anxiety was to get within shot while yet
light enough to see the sights of my rifle. After
an animated conversation as to the best point to
reach, we decided to work round and get above
him, the wind also being favourable for that
move, so taking one man I hurried forward.
After reaching a hollow swampy place, which we
had to cross, we lost sight of the quarry, and could
only trust to finding him somewhere about the
spot where he had been first seen grazing. The
clamber up the face of the hill was heart-breaking,
it being covered with loose stones concealed in
matted grass, so that with the effort of climbing,
and anxiety not to make a noise, added to the
knowledge that it was getting darker every moment,
I was dripping by the time I reached a coign of
vantage. We proceeded carefully along the side,
looking down every moment hoping to see the
bull, and had not gone far when the native
crouched, pointing below him. All I saw was the
immense head and horns of the animal as he
gazed up at me through some very long grass,
and I could only guess how he stood, so fired to
just miss his head, hoping to get the bullet into
his chest inside the shoulder blade. It was barely
light enough to see the foresight of my rifle.

116 INDIAN BIG GAME

That the shot took effect somewhere was evident
from the loud smack of the bullet as it came in
contact. The bison swerved round, and I fired
the left into the waving grass, which completely
hid the brute from view. That he entered a
narrow neck of jungle was plain from the breaking
of undergrowth, so snatching a long-range -370
I awaited his appearance in the open on the other
side, trusting to getting in a right and left.

As he did not show up and I saw the two men
I had left behind coming towards me, from a
point where they commanded a view of any other
egress, I awaited their approach, when they too
said he had not left the jungle. By this time it
was so dark that to find our way home was bad
enough : as to thinking of following up a wounded
bison, that was out of the question.

Next morning I made an early start before
sunrise, as the distance was considerable. There
was no difficulty in finding the spot where the
bison had been, from the trampled grass, and the
tracks were equally plain. He had lain down
soon after entering cover, and during the night
had been in two other places, the last one showing
he had just moved off at daybreak, the form
being still warm. It puzzled me that there was
no sign of blood, and although I know Canarese
fluently and Tamil fairly well, I could not make
the men, who were jungle Kurjas, and who spoke
Malialum, understand the two words I used for
blood ; but at last, noticing I had scratched my
hand, I pointed to the blood, signing there was
none on the tracks. They caught on at once,
saying " seru " (blood), and explained that the

MY RECORD BISON 117

shoulder was damaged, and the bull was bleeding
internally, owing to the shot being from above. A
still greater surprise awaited us, for, on emerging
from the forest into the open, to our astonish-
ment we saw from the cropped grass that the
bull had been grazing, but only a nibble here
and there.

We had followed the tracks only a few yards
when my sharp-eyed shikari pulled up, pointing
to some twitching grass, and whispered, " There
he is," and there he undoubtedly was, waiting
head on for our reception.

After a bit I clearly made out his horns
shimmering in the sunlight above the grass,
while a continued switching of his tail had first
shown us his close proximity. He moved a
step or two towards us, so, making out his body,
I fired, and on his jumping to one side I gave
him the left, loading up as quickly as possible,'
and none too soon, as he charged right at us,
pulling up immediately above me. The front
man shinned up a tree ; I do not know what
the other did, as I was sufficiently concerned at
my own position, with an angry bull glaring down
at me within a few yards !

I loosed off both barrels at something, but
just at what part of his anatomy I was by no
means sure, though it relieved me immensely
to see he did not like such rude play, as he
staggered back, and eventually reeled out of
sight. I here made a fatal mistake, against
the wishes of the shikari, who gesticulated to
his companion to hurry me up the face of the
hill to cut the bison off. I was so cocksure

118 INDIAN BIG GAME

he was done for, that I made for where he had
last been seen. Imagine my disgust when, after
some precious moments had been wasted, one of
the natives pointed to him a jolly good hundred
yards off, walking slowly up the hill, and just
about to enter a dense shola. I exchanged my
12-bore Explora for the -370 and let rip, when,
with a mighty bound, he plunged forward, and
as he entered the forest I gave him the left.
There was no doubt of blood being a guide now !
Foreseeing, though, that there might be delay,
I sent back for my lunch, and sat down to eat
my breakfast meanwhile.

We followed the bison the whole day, during
which time he stuck to dense, almost impenetrable,
jungle. This made tracking very tedious and
tiring.

He broke from us twice, but attempted no
further mischief, although within a few yards
of us each time ; the crashing of the under-
growth alone made us aware of his having broken
away.

At sunset there was nothing for it but to
return home, fearing there was another heavy
day's work to be done before I could count him
mine.

On the third day I was attended by several
Moplas, armed with butcher knives, keen for the
meat. These Mahommedans had to slash the
expiring animal thoroughly, in strict observance
of their customary religious rites, as otherwise
it would be unclean food. They were made to
keep well in the background, while I and my
trusty Kurjas followed the tracks.

XI MY RECORD BISON 119

He kept on for miles before lying down, and
then we came on five forms, where he had lain
down only to move on a few yards again. Finally
he left the jungle and crossed some grass land,
entering an isolated piece of forest, where my
men were certain he must be, so I suggested that
one should accompany me to the other side and
stand in the open (as to get a shot inside seemed
hopeless from the previous day's experience),
while the other men followed on to put him up.
Before I reached the appointed spot I noticed
fresh tracks of a bison having come out, and the
man with me said, "It is no good, he has not
lain up in this bit " ; eventually the followers
joined us, confirming the news. Intervening
was a huge stretch of open country before the
quarry could hope to reach cover. It was then
noon, and the natives, being disheartened them-
selves, had an idea that I was cornered, but, as
I pointed out to them, it was the third day the
animal had not eaten, and where he lay next
would be his final resting-place, and I intended
to follow him to that spot. It was wonderful
to see the tracking done by one special man.
The blood had ceased the evening before, and
yet, without a pause, he took me on, till at last
we reached a long, unbroken line of dense forest.
Before entering, there was a hasty consultation
amongst the men, and the leader came forward to
say he wanted me to come with him, so as to enter
the jungle further up, to stand in the bison's path
if he should be roused by the others coming behind.

I had not waited five minutes beside a tree,
well inside, but commanding a good view in the

120 INDIAN BIG GAME

gloom of this virgin jungle, when I heard shouts
and shrieks ahead of me, followed directly by
the loud tread of a large animal.

One or two Moplas having been posted in
trees on the outskirts, so as to turn him towards
me, commenced shouting too. Next moment my
bull pulled up within seventeen yards of me, and
stood looking towards where the Moplas were,
little realizing his aggressor was so near.

On firing the right with my 12 -bore, he did
not flinch or budge, although the bullet entered
in front of the left shoulder ; but on getting
the second barrel, he commenced to reel, and
came down with a crash, and the Moplas were
on him like fiends.

He was the toughest bison I have ever had to
do with, as, besides the number of shots he had
had from me, I found three other bullets embedded
in different parts of his body ; one was no doubt
from a native gun, but the other two were nickel
from a -450 Express.

The moment I saw the head I knew it had
beaten all my previous bags. It was enormous !
the horns measuring :

From tip to tip, round outer edge and

across forehead . . . 6 ft. 9| in.

Across the sweep . . . . 3 ,, 6 ,,

Between the tips . . . . 2 ,, 5| ,,

Circumference at base of horn . . 1 „ 10 ,,

The skull and horns are now in Capetown.
Strange to say, my first bullet had gone through
the lobe of his ear, entering side of neck and
penetrating inside his shoulder blade.

XI A COUPLE OF TIGERS 121

In January 1909, on returning from Rhodesia,

I went to stay with my old friend M on the

Nelhampathy Hills, for the express purpose of
bagging a Nilgiri ibex, a species of goat that I
had not previously shot. As a trophy it is
not much to look at, and I should say the chief
excitement lies in the rough ground one has to
negotiate, perhaps specially precipitous where I
was. I bagged two, one of which was dashed
to pieces by a fall of 300 feet.

In response to another invitation from the
ever-hospitable planter, I proceeded on the 5th of
February to spend a couple of nights at Mr. and

Mrs. H 's bungalow, with the hope of securing

an old saddle-back (ibex) on their side of the
cliffs. Although I had done a good twelve-mile
walk that morning to reach their bungalow, I
nevertheless went for a stalk in the afternoon,
on the chance of seeing a sambhur, or possibly
a bison, but I returned in the dark without
having seen anything. After dinner it was
arranged that I should make a very early start
next morning for the ibex ground. I was called
soon after 4 a.m., and was ready to move by
5 o'clock, but the Mulcher guide turned up so
late that the plans had to be altered, and I again
took the slope that I had climbed the previous
evening. About twenty minutes' steady climb-
ing brought me to a summer lodge, where Mr.

H spends the hot weather. We reached

this bungalow soon after 7 a.m., and as we were
wending our way through a narrow strip of
jungle, we heard a sambhur " bell " some distance
ahead, and I thought it might be that the rustling

122 INDIAN BIG GAME

of the leaves, which are very dry at this season,
had alarmed the beast. We emerged into the
open, consisting of a small strip of grass-land.
On the other side of this lay a similar piece of
jungle, through which our path led. Again the
sambhur belled, and almost simultaneously with
the " belling " we heard the deep mutterings of
a tiger ; it did not need the Mulcher's whisper
to tell me what was on foot. I was at the time
standing out in the open on a long slab of sheet-
rock, over which the path wound, and the tiger
could not have been a hundred yards off, inside
the cover and in the direction where the path
entered. I felt sure Stripes was making his way
towards us. I had just cast my eyes down to
see where to place my feet, so as to advance as
noiselessly as possible, when a touch on my arm
made me look up, and, seeing my man pointing
ahead, I followed with my eyes in that direction,
and was amazed to see a tiger walking straight
towards me. His whole form was exposed, but
coming end on, his great round head seemed to
take up the whole view. It was the work of a
second to have my rifle up, but I knew how risky
the head shot was. In the few moments, as I
puzzled where to place my shot, I wondered
why the tiger had not discovered my presence,
and I believed afterwards that it was the sun,
which, having just risen, was catching him
full in the eyes, obscuring his vision ; whereas
I was standing in the shade of a small bushy
hillock, through which the sun had not penetrated.
Certainly it was a sight to be remembered for
many a long day. The peculiar facial markings

■^

A COUPLE OF TIGERS 123

gave the impression that the tiger was smihng,
and his enormous size and vivid colouring as he
Uterally lumbered towards me seemed garish and
out of place in the short grass. A slight turn in
the path gave me the opportunity I had waited
for, and, drawing a line between the ear and point
of the shoulder, I fired, when, without a sound,
he lurched back and rolled over on his side,
stone dead, with never a movement. Killed at
exactly thirty paces from where I stood, I found,
on examination, that my split bullet had crashed
into his chest, passing clean through the heart,
and was embedded in the bowels in the shape of
a perfect mushroom. I had left the bungalow
at 6.15, and by 7.30 a.m. the tiger was mine —
a fine male, measuring 9' 6", with a splendid ruff
and tremendous forepaws.

After my return to the estate, on the 20th of
March 1909, it was reported to me that a tiger
had killed three head of cattle in one place,
besides badly lacerating a buffalo which had
come back to the kraal. It turned out that really
five head of cattle had been killed, but at the time
the informants only knew of three, so I went
down, and found a cow, calf, and bullock. The
latter had been dragged a little way to the bank of
a stream, but all three were otherwise untouched.
I had the cow and calf dragged to where the
bullock was, and fixing upon a suitable tree had
a machan built and commenced sitting up at
3.30 P.M., having dismissed everybody with the
injunction that two were to be within call, as
there was no moon and I had no electric lamp,
so it would be useless sitting up after dark. At

124 INDIAN BIG GAME

6 o'clock, a good half-hour before sunset, I heard
rending and munching in a totally opposite
direction, but could see nothing as I was in thick
jungle. I called for my men, hoping they might
turn up in time to investigate, as without a sling
I did not care to risk breaking my heavy D.B.
•375 by letting it drop while scrambling down the
tree. My men only hurried up at dusk and that
after signalling for a third time, so there was
nothing to be done but return to the bungalow
with the determination to be at the tiger's haunts
by daylight.

The next morning I left the bungalow soon
after five by lantern light, and we were within half
a mile of the place by the first streak of dawn.
We first visited the three kills, which were
untouched. With me were a Sholaga tracker and
the cattleman. Pointing in the direction whence
I had heard the sound of eating the previous
evening, I told the Sholaga to lead the way,
warning him to go carefully and keep his eyes
open, as I knew the best chance of bagging the
tiger lay in our finding him on the kill, for if once
disturbed after such a heavy meal, the probability
of his returning before dark would be very remote.
The Sholaga certainly guided me by the best
route, but unfortunately his eyes were not
skinned sufficiently, for, as I followed on his
footsteps and looked across a slight hollow to the
bank of a small stream, I saw the head of a big
tiger lying down facing away from us. I tried
to stop the Sholaga by a slightly audible hiss,
but without result, so in desperation I slewed
my rifle round on the spot. Just as I did so the

xi A COUPLE OF TIGERS 125

tiger looked round and jumped to his feet, and
simultaneously I fired, a mere snap-shot, but he
seemed to lurch and went off growling. I was
terribly upset, as, if the Sholaga had seen him in
the first instance, I ought to have bagged him on
the spot. The Sholaga only saw the tiger as he
rose to his feet, and at the same time the crack of
my rifle sounded behind him, and he at once
exclaimed, " You have hit him."

We crossed over to where Stripes had jumped
up, and found only the head and neck of a cow,
so that practically the whole of a cow had been
gorged in the night, and there was the warm lair
of the tiger right beside the kill. We followed
in the direction in which the tiger had charged off,
and within a few yards found large splashes of
blood on a green strobilanthus leaf that had
evidently been broken off in the first rush ; further
on we found stuck to the stalks of the undergrowth
what Kerta termed " whottay banju," which
being interpreted means blood from the stomach,
so it was evident he had been badly wounded.

As the sun had not yet lightened the gloom,
although it was 6.45, I decided to follow my
invariable plan of waiting to give the tiger time
to sicken of his wound. The tracks led to the
right, and fortunately a newly made forest road
spanned the whole area in a comparatively small
circle, so that we could either locate him within
this or see by his footmarks that he had crossed
into more distant regions. We had stopped within
a few yards of the road, and keeping to the left
in fairly open ground we soon reached it. There
I sat down to indulge in " chota hazri " and a

126 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

smoke, listening the while, with the pleasure that
enters the breast of all sportsmen, to the flattering
remarks of Kurrama and Kerta as to the size of
the tiger and the accuracy of their master's rifle.
After an hour's patient wait, we braced our-
selves for a further investigation by taking the
road in its whole circle, and quite soon came
on the pug tracks of a large tiger. There
were no signs of blood, and as the marks
were those of a leisurely walk, my men argued
that they were the night tracks ; but I had my
doubts, and after - results proved I was correct.
Anyway we continued our walk and found further
evidence of his roamings. At a place where
he had lain on the road looking down towards
the kill, the mark of his tail was plainly visible.
That these were night tracks was beyond dispute.
We eventually reached the path that I had come
down by in the early morning, which was on the
other side of the circle. Here I found a Sholaga
boy, Bola, with my breakfast, and Kerta's brother,
Madha, who, hearing the shot, had come to learn
the news, so they joined forces after depositing
the tiffin basket in a shady nook. The real work
of the day now began, and the tiger had had a
good couple of hours to stiffen. The tracks soon
showed that he had crossed the road, and led
into long, dry lemon grass, the blades of which
were smeared with blood ; ahead was a piece of
jungle to which he had evidently made. The
tracking was not easy owing to his slow pace,
and the blood was scanty, caused, so the Sholagas
said, by his having eaten to repletion so that the
wound had become stopped up.

A COUPLE OF TIGERS 127

I had constituted Madha the chief tracker,
he being the eldest of the three Sholagas, and he
confessed after reaching the jungle that he had
got off the right track, as the pug mark impressed
on the leaves was evidently that of a night prowl.
Just before entering the jungle three of the men
who were scattered below Madha and me signed
that they heard sounds of an animal moving off
in the leaves, but we could see nothing. I knew
this little bit of jungle well, as in past years I had
bagged several panther therein ; it only extended
a short way up, succeeded by open grass land to
the ridge of the hill. We proceeded along the
right-hand side of the cover to the top, where I
sat down to drink from a cool rivulet. We then
descended the left side, intending to return to
where we had last seen blood, but there was no
need to go so far, as we almost immediately came
on the big impress where the tiger had lain up,
and a quantity of blood, and what was more
to the point, he had vomited up a considerable
quantity of beef from the night's meal, showing
how sick he was. Blood was flowing more freely,
and we followed it from the jungle into the lemon
grass again. Within a few yards he had lain
down again, until aroused by our coming on his
trail, so realizing the risks we ran, I ordered
Madha to climb a tree every few yards, from
whence he could see if the way was clear for
moving on.

The value of this manoeuvre quickly showed
itself, as before half a dozen trees had been
climbed, Madha signalled from above that he
heard the tiger. We were at that moment close

128 INDIAN BIG GAME

to a patch of very green dense undergrowth, out of
which the tiger had apparently moved ; so at his
suggestion he and I skirted the lower side where
the hill sloped, in the hope of seeing our booty,
while the other three men followed on the tracks.
When the Sholagas joined us on the other side they
reported that the tiger had again lain down and
vomited up a great deal more meat, and a much
greater quantity of blood had flowed. Our pro-
gress had been so slow that it was getting on for
11 o'clock, so I called a halt for breakfast. Two
men went back and brought me the grub, which
I enjoyed as much as excitement would allow ;
perhaps if I had known that the tiger had turned
here and was lying in the long grass about fifty
yards above me, it might not have added to my
comfort. So we chatted gaily, as the Sholagas
were confident he had made off down below to
the hullah (river), where we thought we might
find him reposing in the shade and obtain a com-
paratively good view for a coup de grace.

I was by now quite confident the tiger was
wounded unto death but would need a finishing
shot. I smoked a pipe till 12 o'clock, then once
more took up the quest. We soon found the
tiger had decided to keep to the long grass, no
doubt because it offered more concealment.

That the tiger only lay up until we were on the
move again was proved by Madha signalling from
a tree that he heard rustling in the grass, and we
found a fresh form with wet blood. Just above
us on the slope of the liill were two gigantic rocks
a little apart from each other, forming a cleft, and
on the nearer one clung a species of fig-tree

XI A COUPLE OF TIGERS 129

which lent itself to the adventure later on. For
some unaccountable reason Kurrama, the herds-
man, was positive the tiger lurked between these
two rocks, and we were not more than twenty
yards off in an ugly position below them. Madha
cUmbed a sapling, and I watched his countenance,
which I had learned was most expressive. He
very shortly began imitating loud breathing and
pointed to the rocky knoll, then getting fright-
fully excited, gesticulated towards the grass. I
looked, and, lo and behold, from out those rocks
stepped Stripes. What with the grass and the
fact that his head and shoulders had already
disappeared behind another stone, I could only
get in a snapshot far back, but the shock of the
•375 bullet was so great that I saw his hind-
quarters and tail swirl over and disappear behind
the rock, from whence came angry mutterings.
I then saw some gymnastics worth looking at !
Madha, who is an extremely lengthy individual,
was swinging on a sapling much too low in his
opinion to be safe ; suddenly I saw a long leg
stretched out, followed by an equally long arm
towards a Matti tree. His limbs just touched the
trunks, not sufficient to get a grip, so throwing
back his whole weight the sapling rebounded,
bringing him within grip, and next moment the
plucky tracker was thirty feet above ground.

I looked round and found only Kurrama, the
herdsman, on foot, holding my spare rifle (a 12-
bore shot and ball) rigidly in front of him and
pointing straight for the small of my back. I
glanced at it to see if the safety catch was all
right, as I did not want a bullet through my vitals.

K

130 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

I had barely done so when Madha called out,
" Take to the trees, every one of you," and
next moment Kurrama, rifle and all, was up a
tree too, and I found myself alone with the
tiger. I looked hastily towards where I knew he
was by his growls, and, seeing no sign, I as calmly
as possible suggested that if one of them would
reach down and take my rifle, I too might follow
the monkey's example by taking to a tree. Kerta
did so, and with one jump from the top of a
convenient rock I flung myself on to a bough,
pulling myself up to a safe distance, and discover-
ing Kurrama in the same tree. I found my
refuge very pliant but most comfortable, with a
nice branch to sit on and another just the right
distance to support my feet. The tiger's mutter-
ings were not pleasant, and from Madha's grimaces
he was evidently showing his teeth, looking all
around for us. Madha suggested that as I could
not see the quarry from my coign of vantage, I
should get down and take up a position on the
very rocks the tiger had just left, which would
bring me within striking distance of him ; but his
purrs seemed hardly friendly ; so to show the
intrepid Madha, who soared above us all, that
haste was not my motto under such circumstances,
I pulled out my pipe and relit it, and with rifle
across my knees enjoyed a quiet smoke, the
while watcliing Madha, who was gibbering with
what we will call sheer excitement. He evidently
thought he was talking to us, but only his lips
were moving until Kurrama from behind me
rudely remarked, " If you will speak out we may
hear what you say."

XI A COUPLE OF TIGERS 131

At last Madha found his tongue and said the
tiger was moving off, so learning that I could get
a shot from the first-mentioned rocks, and Kerta
volunteering to cross the space with my rifle, I
took the spare one from Kurrama and essayed to
get down the tree. By no amount of agility
could I get back on to the rock I had sprung from,
so I had to ignominiously scramble to the foot of
the tree and then I scurried through the long
grass to behind the first rock, up which I could
scramble by the aid of the fig-tree. Here Kerta
was already awaiting me. I handed him my gun,
but the thought of the tiger perhaps coming to
chew chunks out from behind is not an aid to
unpractised climbing. With the help of rubber-
knobbed boots, however, and Kerta hauling me
from above, I got to the top of number one rock,
but could only hear, without locating. Stripes, and
was then told I would have to cross a gap to an
even more imposing rock. When I did so my
ears were saluted with most horrible roarings, but
the sunlight, the colour of the grass and the tiger
were so well blended, that I could not make him
out at first. The spot where the growl came
from was, however, so evident that gradually
my eyes disentangled the one from the other and
I distinguished the tiger, crouched facing me,
snarling with bared fangs ; but although my
position was within an easy rushing spring I
knew I was safe from the way he kept turning his
head towards his hindquarters, showing that the
effects of my first, or second, or both shots com-
bined, had crippled his propelling powers badly.
Watching for an opportunity to avoid his head,

132 INDIAN BIG GAME

I fired for the point of his right shoulder, and as
that did not finish his career I gave him the left
barrel on the other shoulder and he rolled over
on his side.

My morning's shot had got him high up on the
hip just missing the bone, and had come out on
the left side of his paunch, from whence dangled
a bunch of fatty tissue which had painted his
course through the grass. The delay in following
him up probably saved us a mauling, as on
skinning him I found the whole surface of his hind-
quarters badly inflamed, and when I saw him in
the grass, which gave me my second chance, he
seemed as if he were walking on stilts, instead of
moving with the crouching gait one would have
expected under the circumstances.

This animal was very thick-set and bursting
with fat, and stubby. I had not a tape with me,
but I took a rough measurement, which panned
out at about 9 feet. He was a male with un-
damaged fangs, and a very decent ruff, beautifully
marked.

"THICK-SET AND BEAUTIFULLY MARKED.

CHAPTER XII

MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK

By C. W. G. Morris

I WILL conclude by relating as briefly as possible
a few of the experiences I had between November
1910, when the crowning luck of all came in the
shape of a wife, and September 1922.

Apart from joining Captain F. to follow a tiger
he had wounded (when luckily I got in a shot
which turned the brute, enabling him to wipe it
out) it was not till April 1912 that I got a chance
of my own.

My wife and I were camped in the Naad or
low country. The evening of our arrival, while
out with a tracker, I saw the fresh pug marks of a
tiger on the side of a nullah which at this season
was almost dry except for a pool here and there.
I had an old cow tied up, and next morning sure
enough it was killed.

As a wedding present I had been given an
Ever-Ready electric light with some twenty
yards of wire, and this was a lovely opportunity
to try it, as there was no moon.

Tying the kill securely by the neck to a tree,
I had (instead of the chair, which I prefer) a
machan put in a convenient tree, as owing to the

133

134 INDIAN BIG GAME

distance from camp I decided I would stay the
whole night if Stripes did not turn up in daylight.

I climbed into the tree at 3 p.m. ; darkness came
but not the tiger. I tried my light to see if it
was working all right ; it was splendid, I could see
the kill plumb in the centre of the halo of light.
About 10 o'clock, hearing tearing and gnawing, I
switched on the lamp and made out the head of a
tiger, and fired. This was followed by a "• whoof "
and snuffle as the animal charged away. Barely
a few minutes had elapsed after I doused the glim
when there was a loud roar from the direction in
which the wounded beast had gone. I was puzzled
as to what it meant, but feeling sure my bullet had
got home all right, I rolled myself up in a blanket
for a snooze, with one ear anyway on the alert.

It was about midnight when, to my astonish-
ment, I was thoroughly aroused by the sound of
fearful rending. Quickly training my rifle on to
the kill I again turned on the light and saw a huge
tigress apparently trying to tear the head off
the kill. On seeing the glare she sat up on her
haunches and gazed up at the seeming full moon
which had so suddenly appeared. This offered a
priceless shot, which I took immediate advantage
of, and I heard the thud of the bullet as I scored
a bull. She plunged forward and came crashing
towards my tree, close to which she expired.

Next morning we found the result of my first
shot in the shape of bone, sinew, and hair scattered
on the ground, and on following the blood tracks
we came on a wounded three-quarter grown cub,
which had a smashed paw and shoulder ; this I
despatched at close quarters with my 12-bore.

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XII MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 135

In September of the same year I was out one
Sunday after sambhur, having with me three
Sholaga trackers. I had gone on ahead with one,
to await the other two, whom I had told to walk
quietly through a piece of jungle towards me.
While waiting I was attracted by a pecuUar
moaning in the distance, and on putting up my
field - glasses my vision was greeted with the
strange sight of some bison circling about with
lowered horns. Suspecting the reason I studied
the place carefully, and soon espied a very large
tiger lying prone on a rock, switching his tail.
I suppose he funked tackling them, as after a bit
he jumped off the rock and commenced walking
down through some long grass, with tail very
erect like an angry dog ; in fact I could distinctly
see the bushy end of his tail bobbing along when
the animal itself was merged in the grass. I
immediately sent the tracker back to fetch the
other two Sholagas, and as they arrived the tiger
entered an isolated patch of jungle, while the
bison disappeared over a ridge.

There was a wide expanse of open grass land
around the patch of forest the tiger had entered,
the main jungle being below me. I felt sure if
disturbed the tiger would naturally seek the cover
of the latter. In the open on the grass hill-side,
between where the tiger was lying and in the
direction where I hoped he would bolt, was a
large rock commanding a view all round.

Prior to taking up my position on this rock I
ordered the trackers to beat up from below,
through the piece of jungle where the tiger was
now lying up. They carried out my instructions,

136 INDIAN BIG GAME

but I observed that they had taken to the trees
Uke monkeys, clambering along the boughs. I
did not see any movement, yet that tiger must
have come to the very edge of some long grass
quite close to my rock. Finding as he supposed
a clear road, he came bounding past me at a
gallop. I was using a D.B. -375 H.V. ; my right
bowled him over, and as he was recovering my
left landed him in the hips. This gave me the
biggest head that I have in my bungalow. A
bulldog I had with me was not a bit abashed by
the size or smell of the vanquished, and started
to worry the carcase.

In April 1913 I got a fine thick-set tiger over a
kill. I merely mention this, as it proved that in
a head-shot the bullet is deflected more often
than it penetrates.

I had wounded him late in the evening, so had
to follow him up the next morning. As I was
crossing an open glade, on the blood spoor with a
couple of jungle men, we heard some squirrels, a
tiny species found all through India on the plains,
making a great noise from a thicket just ahead of
us, and the trackers assured me the tiger was
there ; as I walked towards the cover I saw
his huge head slowly rising, facing me. I had
no other shot, so let him have it on the pate.
Down it dropped and I rushed into close quarters,
when I found the tiger to be quietly breathing,
only stunned by the bullet, so I finished him off
with another behind the left shoulder. My first
bullet had ricochetted off, only chipping away a
circular piece of the skull the size and thickness
of a rupee, which lay loose inside the skin.

XII MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 137

In April 1914 we went to live at Garstead,
where we had been granted a bungalow site on
Gunguru Kanawe, and the following May left for
home on seven months' leave.

After my return, in May 1915, Mrs. S., a friend
of ours, and a very keen sportswoman, came to
stay with us. My wife and I had had a very
pleasant camp with her and her husband in May
1913. She was anxious to bag a tiger. The first
chance was lost ; I had tied up a goat, and a tiger
came and passed under our machan, jumping on
the goat without any warning. The suddenness of
the onslaught must have flurried Mrs. S., as she
missed. Strange to say, the goat was none the
worse except for a few scratches. Some days
later another kill was reported and we again sat
up : the tiger came quite early, and as he was
approaching Mrs. S. got her shot in ; instead
of dashing off the tiger came blundering on,
and I put in a couple more bullets, rolling him
over quite close to the kill : — another instance
of how impossible it is to know what a tiger will
do. I have fired at a tiger, certainly on a pitch
dark night, not once but two or three times in
the same night, with the only result that it has
shown its displeasure by raging round my tree.
Over one kill I wounded a tiger twice, right
and left, and yet it returned to the kill, leaving
splashes of blood, and having evidently circled
all round the carcase. Hardly anticipating this
I had not sat up again, and only discovered its
return when going next morning to follow up the
tracks.

I recollect my brother wounding a tiger which

138 INDIAN BIG GAME

returned, and only this year my brother-in-law
L. C. O. had a similar experience. I had put him
on to a kill, and on arriving at the spot at 10 a.m.
he met the tiger standing facing him ; he fired and
found plenty of blood. The tracks were lost owing
to the tiger taking to short grass on the hill-side.
Next day I accompanied L. C. O., and by the
merest chance suggested visiting the kill before
trying to pick up yesterday's spoor ; the kill had
been dragged several feet ; so that night I sat up,
but I was driven away by a raging monsoon
which threatened the collapse of my machan.
The following morning I found the kill had been
again dragged a considerable distance, and what
is more, the tiger only moved away on hearing
my approach ; the lair was hot. Very little more
of the carcase had been eaten, and at first sight I
thought that some dry reeds had been laid over
the remains, but a closer examination revealed
they were the rib bones picked as clean as if they
had been scraped white.

That was the last of this tiger, for although I
sat up, torrents of rain and dense mist drove me
home, and next morning Stripes had not returned.
The jungle men were confident it was the wounded
tiger, and that there was no other about.

The flesh remaining was hardly sufficient for a
meal, and one can only ascribe to his wounded
condition the fact that he had returned and pro-
tected it in the hopes of feeling fit to finish it
later on.

Towards the end of May I visited my favourite
haunt on the foothills, and I there met with an
extraordinary occurrence. Seeing fresh tracks of

XH MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 139

tiger I sent for a cow and tied her up the same
evening. I started off the following dawn, the
tie-up having been placed on a fire path beside a
steep banked stream, which was practically dry
at this season. On nearing the spot we could
see the cow had been taken, and on halting
could distinctly hear the noise of crunching and
dragging close by. Hoping to get me a shot the
tracker led me into the nullah, and as I went I
espied a tiger walking through the bamboo.
Pushing my tracker to one side I stole up the
bank, and while peering about I suddenly saw
the head of a tiger bob up, and then its white
chest, evidently taking a good look at me. I
took careful aim and fired. " It's down," ex-
claimed my man. We went forward to the place
but could find nothing, nor any signs of blood on
the tracks. I was so mystified that I went back
and took aim over again, having directed my man
to crouch in the attitude of the tiger. Marking
the spot, I walked back to find a bamboo had
intercepted my bullet. I was terribly cast down,
as I made sure the disturbance would spoil any
further chance.

Anyway I had a chair tied to a tree that rose
straight up from the river bed. The kill was in
the bamboo on the level of the bank. As a
further inducement to tempt Stripes, I tied up a
goat below me in the river-bed itself. I sat up
very early in the afternoon, and as often happens
at this time of the year, a thunder-storm started
muttering in the distance, followed by a strong
wind which seemed to be blowing direct from me
to the kill. However, as the goat was doing her

140 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

part nobly in the way of bleating, I concentrated
my attention on the river-bed, at the same time
keeping an eye on the opposite bank.

Nothing seemed to stir, and it was getting on
for 5 o'clock ; the storm, thank goodness, had not
come my way, but the wind still seemed to be
blowing adversely. Something, an instinct I
suppose, caused me to give a glance towards the
kill, and there was a tiger facing me, actually
standing on the kill. In bringing my rifle round it
knocked a bough, with the only result that the tiger
looked behind with a snarl. If it had looked in
the direction of the sound it could not have failed
to see me, as I was almost on the same level
amongst totally bare branches. I dropped the
brute on the top of its meal with a bullet between
its shoulders.

Not caring to sit up any longer than necessary,
I three times called loudly for my men but got
no response, although they had assured me they
were within easy hearing. Knowing that they
would anyway turn up at dusk, I lit a cheroot,
making myself as comfy as possible. An hour
could not have elapsed when I noticed the goat
seemed uneasy, stamping its foot and staring
fixedly. Turning my eyes in the direction I saw
another tiger standing broadside on in the bam-
boo, looking straight at the goat ; an easy pot-
shot which I took full advantage of. For the
second time two tigers over one kill, and in broad
daylight this time !

On the 17th of February 1921 a tiger killed a
specially bred heifer, the result of a half-bred
Jersey bull I had acquired to improve the milk-

XII MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 141

ing strain of my stock. I was very sick about
it and vowed vengeance. I sat up, but though
the heifer had not been touched or dragged,
Stripes did not put in an appearance till sunset.
In spite of a long shot and the glare of the setting
sun in my eyes, I got in a bullet and he charged
off. Next morning I sent word to a friend, Capt.
F., asking if he would like to follow up with me.
We tracked the whole of that day, putting him up
once, when we each fired and missed. Just a
flash of yellow through the grass. The tiger was
evidently very very sick, lying down frequently,
never going far in one direction, just circling
round. The grass was so thick and high we
could see no distance. In the evening we left
the tiger almost in the same spot where he had
lain in the morning after our shots.

F. left me, convinced I would find the brute
dead in the morning, but should this not prove to
be the case I was to send for him. The next day,
hearing me coming, the tiger got up and moved
on, so I sent back for F. and our tiffin, which we
consumed before again taking up the tracks ;
these led us into long grass, so I made my favourite
shikari Kerta climb a tree every few yards, and
within a very short distance I noticed him crouch
and then gesticulate towards us. The tree was
fairly climbable, but I had leather-soled boots
with no grip, whereas F. had on a pair of rubber-
soled shoes. As the tiger was not fifteen yards
from us there was no use delaying till I got into
socks ; the pause might give the tiger time to
think of a rush towards us, so F., who had just
returned from home and added to his waist

142 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

girth very considerably, managed by dint of
pushing and hauUng on the part of Kerta, to get
within view of the tiger.

A neck shot settled the trick. My bullet of
the 17th had hit the tiger plumb in the centre on
the last rib, smashed the edge of its liver, carried
on through the diaphragm and had come out
behind the right shoulder. How he lived so long
is a wonder.

On the 9th of September I left to join B. in
camp, to help him to bag a tiger.

He was staying at a spot where I have shot
most of my tigers, and I reckoned it would prob-
ably be a simple matter to get him the desired
trophy ; but as this account will unfold, it was a
more difficult task than I anticipated, for sub-
sequent events showed we were dealing with a
tigress of most consummate cunning and cruelty.

The evening of my arrival " khabar " was
brought of a buffalo having been killed, and B.
remarked " it looks as if you had brought me
luck ! " I wish it had been the case !

It was too late to fix up a machan that night,
but the kill being near we went to the spot and
lay close by in wait, commanding the approach,
of which there was only one. When it was too
dark to see the sights of our rifles we gave
it up.

Next morning on visiting the kill it was found
the tiger had come during the night, but strange
to say had only dragged the carcase a few feet.
It was a splendid spot to sit over, with a very
fine tree to tie our chairs in. I say chairs, as B.
was anxious that I should sit with him to turn on

xn MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 143

his electric light, which we intended fixing for use
after dark. The ground rose sheer behind us,
the wind too was more in our favour than it
proved to be over any other kill (and in the three
weeks we sat over many). I think there is nothing
so wearisome as an all-night sitting over a kill
for a tiger that never comes. Despite all that
was propitious, the only sound that gave us a
momentary palpitation was a mongoose which
swore loudly at us ; and two tired-out men returned
next morning to the forest lodge, where I, any-
way, slept like a log, after our 9 o'clock breakfast.

It would be too tedious to give details of all
the kills that took place. We counted seven, and
we sat up over four of them, each for two nights
in succession, without any result.

We got the blue funks one night when perched
in a none too thick tree growing on the side of a
very steep hill. A raging thunder-storm broke
and we heard one tree crash close beside us. As
the situation became risky, neither B. nor myself
being featherweights, we fired off our guns at
midnight to attract our shikaris, but of course
they did not hear us, so they said !

My friend B. fortified himself with an occasional
pull at his flask. "Beastly stuff," he remarked,
and said he would never bring it again, but I
fancy he felt more confidence than I did when
an unusually strong blast threatened to cork-
screw our tree from its roots.

Before I come to the pith of my story I must
say a word about B. He was geniality intensified.
I hope he won't mind my mentioning his age —
71 years this month. I only hope I may have

144 INDIAN BIG GAME

his vigour and activity at the same age. He
sprinted up the ladders and twisted round boughs
Hke a veritable Malabar squirrel ; as for myself, I
developed a slight touch of pleurisy from a strain
due to perpetually clambering up and down those
rickety bamboo ladders, but as regards B., the
longer the ladder the more pleased he seemed to
be, and to think that after all the trouble and
those weary nights he should have had no luck !

On the 21st I left for my estate, but on the
24th I returned to camp at 5 p.m. to find B.
already sitting up over another kill which had
taken place the previous night ; it's a wonder wings
had not started to sprout from B.'s shoulders, as
really he seemed to spend most of his time up a
tree. This time the tiger had shown the acme of
cruelty, the trackers told me ; the unfortunate
tie-up must have been lying down when Stripes
appeared on the scene, and stealing up, literally
laid his weight on the unlucky bait and commenced
to munch the quivering meal. Of course I did not
attempt to join my companion, and really as I
had had a long walk I was glad of a night's good
sleep. Next morning I roused the shikaris early
and proceeded to the spot to find B. as cheerful
as ever although still no tiger, and as he could
not speak the native language he knew nothing
of the agony his unfortunate tie-up had gone
through. On inspection, all that the trackers
had told me was fully borne out, the contents of
the paunch were smeared flat and smooth on the
hide of the kill ; the throat had not been seized
and everything pointed to the truth of the report.
This tie-up, by the way, had been chained to a

XII MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 145

tree, so the tiger had been unable to drag it
away.

A pecuharity which I have never noticed in
other tigers was that this one invariably ate all
down the spine, evidently liking the saddle, and
then stripped the ribs. All the kills whether
tie-ups or stray victims were treated in this way,
showing it to be evidently the work of the same
tiger.

The position on the 25th was as follows : There
were three kills ; the one described above, over
which I put watchers to keep off vultures ; and
a tie-up some two miles further on, which I
took in my morning's rounds ; and another in
the opposite direction, which B. visited. On
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday there was no
result, and by this time the kill had become so
offensive it was abandoned to the vultures.

On Thursday the 28th I set off early as usual
with two men, so that in the event of a kill
one man could always be left behind to keep
watch till the coolies brought the chairs and
other paraphernalia incidental to a sit-up. We
found the young bull tied here as frisky as ever,
and having seen it watered, and plenty of grass
supplied, we started on our homeward journey
about 7 A.M., going back by a different route on
the off - chance of a shot at a chital. We had
not gone far when we heard a roar. Both the
trackers exclaimed, " A bear ! " I was carrying
a 9 mm. Mannlicher magazine rifle of my wife's,
and my pet shikari, Kerta, had my Wcstley-
Richards Explora shot and ball gun. This I
had been taking for the last three or four days

146 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

only, with some No. 1 cartridges, as my wife had
asked me to try and get her a pea-fowl; and I
had with me only three ball cartridges. Anyway,
before leaving the path and entering the jungle
in the direction from which the noise came,
I exchanged the magazine for my Explora, and
wished I had brought more ball ammunition,
as the men hinted at two bears being the cause
of the row.

Just before turning off the path I pointed
out to the trackers that crows seemed greatly
interested in something in the direction we were
going, and I queried whether the noise we had
heard might be accounted for by a tiger. They
agreed, so we went with extra caution. Every-
thing was in our favour ; it was still fairly early,
the wind was gently blowing towards us, and
although it had not rained for the last few days,
the leaves were very wet after the night. I
myself had on an excellent pair of rubber crepe
stalking boots, and I was careful that no sound
should be made, so much so that when, as often
happens, a " wait-a-bit " caught my clothes, I
signed to the man following to disentangle me.
Keeping our eyes well skinned, we proceeded
slowly forward, and as we neared our objec-
tive, a solitary vulture flapped from a tree
close by, and we nodded to each other signifi-
cantly. A few paces more and again Kerta
the tracker paused, and now occurred an extra-
ordinary thing. Although many's the time I
have spotted something before the tracker in
front of me, one knows that he is hampered
not only by having to keep a look-out, but also

xu MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 147

by choosing the path, avoiding stones, twigs, and
thickets where possible ; but in this case I also had
a tracker following behind me, and yet neither
of them saw the sight that met my eyes until
the raising of my gun attracted their attention.
As I remarked before, Kerta had paused ; he
peered ahead to his left, and I did the same to
the right, and there, within fifteen yards of
me, was the form of a sleek and glossy tigress,
lying on her side with her back to me, her head
and shoulders concealed by the trunk of a tree ;
otherwise she was in full open view. As I covered
her with my gun she happily flicked her tail in
luxurious repletion after a heavy meal. In-
stinctively, being at such very close quarters, I
aimed at her spine. Bang! and with a roar she
reared herself up on her forelegs and glancing
over her shoulders snarled at me, but her hind-
quarters were motionless — my aim had carried
true. I then landed her with my left barrel
through the shoulder into the chest, and over
she rolled ; but as I hastily ejected the two
empty shells, and was ramming my third and last
cartridge home, she twisted round and seized
one of her hind legs in her mouth, crushing the
bone and tearing the flesh from it ; so I gave her
the third barrel. All this happened in less time
than it takes to write. Kerta was so scared that
when I hastily asked him to take my now useless
gun and hand me the small rifle, he simply edged
away. The tigress, in the meantime, was also
doing her best to move away from us, but she
only managed to drag herself some five yards,
and before expiring, vented her rage by rendign

148 INDIAN BIG GAME

the low branch of a tree, under which she
died.

I sent the spare man back to camp for B., and
sat down to a hght " chota hazri " of coffee and
eggs (which I always take with me), after which
Kerta and I strolled round to see what the tiger had
been feeding on. We found the fresh remains of a
cow, which had strayed from an adjacent village ;
and observing traces of an earlier kill, I followed
these up, and came upon the head of a wild
pig, I should say about four days old; so this
tigress had been having a really good time of it
before I downed her.

To give the uninitiated a better idea of what
close quarters fifteen paces meant, I found the
thick felt wad had actually hit her. It was lying
at the edge of her lair, and a thin cardboard wad
was lying within 18 inches of the spot.

I am almost sorry to relate that on cutting
her open I found the embryo of four cubs, all
perfectly shaped, but no bigger than mice, and
she herself taped 8' 3".

I have never seen a tigress with more than
three cubs, so it was distinctly interesting to
find one that had conceived more.

Tracking generally and following up
Wounded Tiger

A few hints might not come amiss to the tyro,
and help to save a lot of disappointment, possibly
lives.

When stalking I am a believer in sauntering ; it
stands to reason the eye can then take in far more

xn MARRIED AND A RUN OF LUCK 149

detail, and is less likely to miss anything unusual.
Always put your best tracker ahead. Do not
go in front yourself, no, not even if you are
following a wounded tiger. It is up to you to
prevent any accident ; your eyes should be
anywhere but on the ground.

You naturally shoot to kill, but if you have
wounded a tiger, leave well alone ; curb your
impatience to follow up ; an hour's delay may
save a mauling. This may sound cruel, but
the old stager who reads this should remember
that the tiger wounded off a machan late in the
evening may have the whole night in which to
suffer.

Have two, and in long grass even three, good
trackers to go with you after a wounded tiger —
one ahead to track and the other two behind to
search out the surrounding cover. Where the
grass is long, send them up trees every few yards
to look down into the undergrowth.

When sitting over a kill be as silent as you can,
and motionless ; a hand or foot moving might
just catch the eye of a watching tiger. If I
simply have to move from cramp or pins and
needles, I do so as imperceptibly as possible. This
equally applies when sighting tiger or panther.
Unless the quarry is on the bolt for some reason
or other, don't fling round your rifle ; wait till
the head is concealed by a bush or tree before
bringing your weapon to bear on the spot at which
you intend to shoot. If you keep perfectly still,
a tiger seldom sees you, although he appears to
be staring straight into your face.

CHAPTER XIII

DEER AND ANTELOPE

" If abroad in the Asphodel meadows some Lord of the Valley
be found."

I HAVE never devoted much time to deer, for I
have generally only hunted them as opportunity
allowed, when after other game. Their pursuit
requires as much, if not more, skill than that of
other game, and I have always enjoyed it ; but
I have never had the ambition to slay more than
one or two of each species of most of these
beautiful animals.

Barasingh and the Kashmir Valley

I have never, to my regret, shot any of the
Himalayan goats, as neither the time available,
nor my head for heights, would allow of it.

My first visit to Kashmir was many years ago,
when I was crippled from a fall, and joined my
father and mother at Gulmarg. While there I
slew two of the ordinary black bear. One of
these was an interesting instance of a bear eating
flesh. I was sitting up for a panther, and heard
a cow bellowing in great distress up the hill
above me. The bellowing turned to moans

160

CHAP, xm DEER AND ANTELOPE 151

and then died away. We reconnoitred next
morning and found a cow with all one hind-
quarter eaten ; there were numerous claw marks
on the body, but no wounds on the throat. It
was evident that the poor beast had been held
down, and eaten alive until it died. There were
bear tracks all round. I rigged up a little machan,
and sat in it all day working at Pushtoo. At
about 4 P.M. the bear, one of medium size, turned
up, and I was glad to slay him.

My next visit to Kashmir was in 1920 with
my wife. We first shot bear eating mulberries;
and I think the local villager impressed me more
than anything else. He ran to tell me there was
a bear up a tree. I was up on some cliffs, and
because I would not come down quickly enough,
the good fellow actually tore out his beard in
handfuls. However, we were in time.

After that we did the usual September emigra-
tion to one of the Sind valley nullahs and got
hold of a really good one, and shot two stag of
40 and 41 J inches, 10 and 12 pointers. I do not
propose to describe this sport in detail, as it has
been and is often written about. I enjoyed
the time immensely, but I admit that the very
early rise in bitter cold and then the trek up some
thousands of feet, only to get frozen again until
daylight comes, does not amuse me. But the
scenery was fine and so was the air ; and the
autumn colouring, with whole hillsides of copper
and gold, was gorgeous.

One stag gave me a bad time. We heard him
calling in the dim dawn on a bare hillside, and,
thanks to some good work of my shikaris, we got

152 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

close up under his feet. I poked my head up
and got a shot with the -818 at twenty yards, a
lying-down shot. The stag vanished over a little
knoll, and we never saw him again, nor did we
find any blood. The memory of this shot grieved
me all that day and for many days, but this year
I met the local man again, and he told me that
the stag had gone, not where we believed and
searched, but in an entirely different direc-
tion into more open, bushy country, and had
dropped dead ; that he had seen the body,
but that the local herdsman had cut off the
horns.

This information was volunteered. The man
had nothing to gain by telling a lie and I believed
him. I do not care what rifle or bullet of this
class one uses, this occasional entire absence of
blood is the curse of the small bore. I have often
seen it.

This stag must have taken a line over shale
slopes for his first half-mile. With the Central
or South India trackers one would never have
lost him.

This little -318, however, vindicated itself
with the next stag, a 12-pointer, and dropped him
dead at eighty yards. This animal was calling
in a dark pine forest and gave us a pretty stalk
uphill, and well in view.

I went up to Kashmir again this year, hoping
to get a really big stag, but I was too late for
the calling season and too early for the real cold
weather, when the stag come low down. I saw
one glorious 10-pointer five hundred yards off
and a 10- and a 12-pointer in range. But these

xm DEER AND ANTELOPE 153

two were not as good as those I had, so I never
fired my rifle. Still the trip was good, and the
country as beautiful as ever. I think, however,
that the Kashmiris are getting more and more
grasping in their demands.

Gond. — I spent a delightful ten days at
Christmas onee with my friend C. He had a line
of elephants, and we used to beat with them all
day, with occasional days after chital and small
game in between. We got five good stag, and I got
an exceptionally good head, which I still have, but
whose measurements are not within my reach, as I
write in the jungle. He was beautifully mounted
by Van Ingen, and I lent him to the R.A. Mess,
Meerut, with the natural result that he was allowed
in about three years to become moth-eaten, and is
now reduced to horns and skull. Mounted heads
are always an anxiety. They are fatal in a public
place, where they never get the attention they
require.

This stag I shot alongside my elephant. He
had crouched hoping to avoid detection, and
would have done so but for keen-eyed Babu of
the Meerut Tent Club.

Sambhur. — These animals undoubtedly give
grand sport and I have pursued them in all parts
of India. My best head was 41 inches, and I got
this in a rotten way. In 1922 I was sitting up
near a river, for a tigress which I subsequently
killed. She was a flighty uncertain creature, and
when I heard her grunting and yawning first up-
and then down-stream I tucked myself up for a
solid undisturbed night's sleep. I was awakened
by a splashing of feet in the water, which

154 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

was about a hundred yards from me. I could
not see the animal, as it was down-stream and
behind me. The footsteps crossed and turned
up-stream along my bank; and presently a fine
sambhur came absolutely under my tree, and I
shot him with the 12-bore and a patent bullet
in the shoulder. There was very little report,
and the stag dropped dead.

This impressed me tremendously with the
power of the smooth-bore and patent bullets, and
I still believe in its efficiency for short ranges ;
but at any distance I have found such inaccuracy
that I have given up using it. My gun is a
good but an old one, and I freely admit the
fault may be entirely with the gun, and that
its bore is so much worn that it cannot shoot a
bullet.

Chital. — I have shot specimens of this stag
all over tiger-shooting India, but my best heads
(36 inches and over) came from H.H. the Mahara-
jah of Kapurthala's preserves on the Nepal
frontier. These beasts, when going fast across
open sots, give pretty shooting, but they are
above all the animal for " still " hunting.

Nilghai. — Common beasts that want much
lead, chiefly useful for a hungry camp. In ride-
able country they should be ridden and speared,
not shot.

Parah or Hogdeer. — These, I consider, are
par excellence the animal for howdah shooting ;
and in our preliminary week beating in pig for
the Kadir Cup, with a strong line of elephants,
we used to shoot a certain number of these
deer. They were badly wanted for food by the

xm DEER AND ANTELOPE 155

large camp of natives and followers, and in addi-
tion made excellent shooting with their straight
gallant rushes.

Blackbuck. — I suppose the experience of every
big -game shot is the same, that when he is
beginning he shoots a certain number of black-
buck, and that gradually he reaches a stage when
only a particularly good head, or urgent need of
food, would tempt him to sacrifice another of
these graceful animals.

More shooting accidents happen with blackbuck
than with any other game. In North India black-
buck frequent high crops and sugar-cane where
there are numerous cultivators at work, and the
use of a low-trajectory high- velocity rifle in their
pursuit requires the greatest care. I have luckily
never been present at any accident ; the nearest
approach to it being when F. and I went out and
separated. He had a horse and tied it up to the
well-run of a sugar-cane field. Somewhat later
he shot a buck on the near side of this field. The
bullet went across the field and then through
his horse's hock. The horse recovered.

I have never shot in the big blackbuck
countries, and 22 inches is my biggest head.

Chinkara. — This antelope is found nearly all
over India, frequently in the same ground as black-
buck, but more often in the vicinity of ravines
and broken ground. The finest heads I have
come from the Jumna Kadir near Agra, where
one Christmas after the war I had excellent
shooting.

Four - horned Antelope and Barking Deer. —
These animals are met with in most big-game

156 INDIAN BIG GAME

CHAP. XI] I

jungles, and if there is no danger of frightening
away big game one cannot wish for prettier or
more sporting shooting than that which these
httle creatures, whether driven or still-hunted,
afford to a light rifle.

CHAPTER XIV

BUFFALO AND SOME REGRETS

" The very poignancy of such regrets
With Time's kind touch shall be their anodyne ;
More potent than ' the herb of Mandragore,'
The surgeon's kindly drug relieving pain,
' Syrup of Poppies,' or than pillowed hops
To ease the mind of every discontent
And call it to the scenes of happy days."

Thanks to an introduction from The Commis-
sioner Mr. B., the ruler of a certain Indian state
very kindly gave me leave to shoot one buffalo
in his territory : a permission I much valued, as
this fine and rare animal is, to my mind, one of
the chief prizes of all Indian sport.

To reach our ground we had a seven days
march down a good country road with heavy
jungles throughout its length on either side.

I had been lent an elephant, and used to send
my servants and breakfast on with it while I
walked, and the carts with all the kit would
arrive some hours later. By this method I got
twelve or fifteen miles daily exercise, and my
servants arrived fresh.

The secret of comfortable marching in India,
especially if sport is not anticipated immediately
on arrival at the far end, is to reach camp having

157

158 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

had exercise oneself, but with one's servants
fresh.

I used to make a state entry on the elephant
at the end of a march, and the simple jungle
people would make profound obeisance to the big
beast, as to one connected with their worship.

The officials and people all through this trip
were delightful : simple, unspoiled, and willing.

We saw chital daily on the road, but the only
shikar I had was in sitting up for wild dog. We
came on a freshly killed four-horned antelope, and
saw three dogs sneak away before we got there.
I had only my gun with round bullets with me.
I climbed into a tree about twenty-five yards
from the kill. The wild dogs came back after an
hour and I took a careful pot-shot, and missed.
The dogs ran off a short distance. I shinned
down the tree, had another careful shot, and
again missed. Then the dogs cleared out. I was
much vexed, for I had never shot one, and I
wanted also to get rid of these pests. Assuredly
my 12 -bore, which is old and worn, cannot fire
round bullets with any attempt at accuracy.

During the last two marches the great tracks
of buffalo were apparent along the road in
increasing numbers : and when I pitched camp
on the last day of the march I realized that we
were in the haunt of these fine beasts. There were
many of them in that country, frequenting by
night, for the most part, the rice-fields and clear-
ings of existing and deserted villages, and moving
at dawn into the adjacent jungles. The country
was plain jungle, with outcrops in all directions
of rocky hills a few hundreds of feet high. The

XIV BUFFALO AND SOME REGRETS 159

jungles consisted of fair -sized trees with much
grass at foot, generally breast-high and often over
a man's head.

There was a full moon, and we used to go out
as day broke ; and, if lucky, we made out grey
masses looking very solid in the uncertain light of
the moon and early dawn. Then we would follow
and stalk them until either we decided there was no
head big enough, or until the buffalo, after several
alarms, started away in earnest. The grass was
so long that the trackers said further pursuit was
useless. For the first few days I listened to
them. After that we took up the tracks and
never left them all day, in the ordinary bison-
tracking manner.

At first, when we did not see the buffalo in
the rice-fields, we generally came on them in the
lighter surrounding jungle.

I spent seven days after buffalo, either morning
and evening, or all day, seeing them singly or in
larger numbers.

One evening we spotted a herd grazing in
overgrown deserted rice on the edge of scrub
about four miles from camp. We stalked
round, but on getting within shot found the
grass so high that I had to climb a tree in order
to see.

There was no bull with a really good head,
although there was a cow with thin, but wonder-
ful, horns that I estimated at 12 feet from tip to
tip, round curves and across forehead. I had
the pleasure of watching this herd of eleven
animals for nearly an hour from close range.
Returning home, we came on absolutely fresh

160 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

marks of tiger. I put in soft-nosed bullets, and
so lost a chance at a fine bull which we met on
the road, and which went off with a crash as I
was changing cartridges.

The great trouble was the length of the grass.
We stalked a herd one day into an open clearing
that we should call a sot in North India. I knew
there was a good bull, for I saw his horns ; but I
could see nothing to fire at, and finally, in despair,
climbed a tree which covered a lighter patch of
grass. A cow and a calf, and later two cows,
grazed directly under my tree, but I was glad the
bull did not come, for it would have been an
unsporting shot.

Another day we came on a herd early in the
morning, and, after getting up to them three
times, we gave them our wind badly and they went
off. Here again we saw only a forest of horns,
though in our third stalk we made a detour at a
run, got behind the herd, and came on the bull.
But I could only see a brown mass with no definite
mark to aim at, and so did not fire, to the ill-
concealed disgust of my little jungle men. This
bull was on the track at the far side of the herd :
apparently, so far as my limited knowledge goes,
these animals always stand facing their tracks,
with, in the case of a herd, the bull furthest away
and all his harem as sentinels.

After the herd went off the bull soon took a
line of his own, and we followed him from 7 a.m.
to 3 P.M. We had great fun tracking, and got
up to him five times, and used to see his big
horns peeping out above the grass. We tried
to get up to him, stooping, crawling, and once up

WK FOUND THE 1!UL[,.

XIV BUFFALO AND SOME REGRETS 161

a tree, but he spotted us every time ; he was
quite as frightened as we were, and by 3 p.m.
he had been going at high speed for a long
time, heading apparently for Ceylon, and so
we bade him adieu. The long grass was heavy
walking and, in the morning, very wet and
cold.

On the seventh day we saw nothing in the
early morning, came back to breakfast, and
then began a long day's search. As we went
along the road we came on the morning's tracks
of a big bull. The jungle men said he would
probably be lying up in a certain clearing, so we
made a bee-line there, and found the bull stand-
ing in the middle of it. Luck was good, for the
whole of the bull's shoulder was above the grass
and the stalk was over bare ground under sap-
lings, with only a few dead leaves and no grass.

1 got a clear shot at seventy yards with the -470,
raking diagonally at the junction of neck and
chest. The bull galloped a hundred yards and
fell dead. I fired other shots, most of which hit
but were not needed. The solid nickel bullet
made a small entrance wound, and caused no
bleeding until he fell.

This was a really fine bull, with horns 9 feet

2 inches long and 18 inches in girth at the base. I
was more than pleased. I had shot my one and
only buffalo, and, especially after getting so fine
a specimen, would not have wished to kill another
of these magnificent beasts. They are certainly
impressive animals, and when one is close to and
in good view of them in grass, one is struck by their
solid massiveness. Although their power of scent

M

162 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

is, of course, extremely acute, I think their eye-
sight is little inferior to it.

After this I had ten days to devote to tiger,
one of which had been calling round camp.
There was a kill the day after I shot the bull.
The local man had tied the cow (buffaloes are
never tied up in this country) to the tiger's bank,
and I had been unable to supervise. The mistake
was obvious on my arrival ; however, I made
the best of a bad job, and selecting a high tree
some way from the bank, I removed all traces
of work and smell so far as I was able. A
tigress came at 8.45 p.m. And I suppose she
wished to show that I had underrated her power
of scent, for she started sniffing a good hundred
yards off, as if she were being poisoned by a real
bad smell. She continued sniffing until she was
under my tree, then darted to the undergrowth
of the opposite bank, and amused herself for the
next two hours in making short rushes, breaking
boughs, and never coming out. Then she went
off. Next morning's tracks confirmed her be-
haviour, as incomprehensible as that of all her
charming sex.

We then moved on twelve miles to where a
man-eating tigress and cub were giving trouble.
This pair were said to have killed forty-five
people in the last six months. This figure was
probably an exaggeration, but undoubtedly many
lives had been lost; and the postal runners had
been intercepted for days together.

We tied up at once and had a few quiet
days, during which two women were killed. One
body was never found, and the other had been

XIV BUFFALO AND SOME REGRETS 163

recovered and buried before I could get there. On
both occasions I heard too late to inspect the
victims.

I had no shikaris of my own. Three or four
of my old reliable men and a couple of bicycle
orderlies would have made all the difference.

Our only excitement was that when tying up
one day we were all treed by a rampageous cow,
and only released by the elephant, who met the
cow in single combat. The cow charged, nothing
loth. The elephant gave a flying kick and
missed. The cow gave the elephant a shrewd
prod with her horns, and recoiled. That was the
end of round one. In round two both animals
charged ; but the elephant got his kick home on
the cow's nose, and I thought he had broken her
neck. However, the cow picked herself up and
went off with a very crooked head, and we climbed
down. She was a lean cow and an ugly one, but
I never saw a better.

To my surprise, one of our tie-ups was killed
by the tigress and cub. I sat up all night, but
nothing came.

The tigress and cub had spent the night
killing another tie-up four miles away, and had
dragged it into a cramped nullah with awkward,
thick undergrowth. This spot gave no facilities
for sitting up, and was moreover in deep shade.
So we extracted this kill, made away with it,
and tied up a new cow near the old one.

I spent a long time over the arrangements,
and then went home for a couple of hours sleep,
having had none the night before.

The cow was picketed to a log buried in

164 INDIAN BIG GAME

the middle of the nullah. We tested this, and
decided it was strong enough.

On returning to sit up I found that a whippy
bough with a few leaves at the end interfered
with the view in one direction ; as, however,
it did not impede the view of the cow and her
surroundings, I left it. It would have made a
noise and taken time to remove it.

Shortly after I had got into the machan a
wild buffalo, with two tame cows he had annexed,
came and grazed under my tree, and I got some
good photos at close range.

The tie-up seemed bored and went to sleep.

At 1 A.M. I heard the low growl of a tiger.
There was then a stillness almost painful in its
intensity. At 1.15 the tiger drew one long, loud,
very deep breath ; he made no other noise, and
charged. I was sitting up, acutely ready. There
was no sound from the cow, nothing to deaden
the noise of the tiger's galloping feet ; then
a blow, a second thud as the cow fell, and all
was still.

I believe the cow never knew of her assailant.
I am certain she was dead before her head reached
the ground.

This experience confirms a similar one of mine
years ago. I have never seen a tiger kill, only
heard it. On this occasion the darkness was
intense.

I waited for the sound of his teeth before switch-
ing on the light. There was a dragging noise. I
turned on the light — no tiger, no kill. For many
seconds I switched the light high and low, but
could see nothing. There was a noise of crunch-

A WILD BUFFALO GRAZED UNDKR MV TREE.

AND I GOT SOME PHOTOS AT CLOSE RANGE."

XIV BUFFALO AND SOME REGRETS 165

ing, proceeding apparently from beyond the one
accursed clump of leaves I had not cut.

At last the tigress spotted me. She gave
two loud roars ; I heard her gallop off, and then
there was silence.

And so I lost this man-eater. She and her
cub had killed ; she had dragged the heavy
buried beam, and had been sheltered by the only
leaves that could have hidden her from view. I
grieved much at my own stupidity, and more at
the toll of human lives this probably entailed.
We waited two days, but the man-eater and her
cub had evidently left that neighbourhood.

Major-General Nigel Woody att, in his interest-
ing book, My Sporting Memories, discusses fully
the question of how a tiger kills his prey.

I add my own views with diffidence to the
expert opinion recorded. My experience is com-
paratively small, yet, for such as it is worth,
my opinion is that in the majority of cases the
tiger kills by seizing his prey by the nape of the
neck or by the throat with his jaws, hooking
the claws of one paw round the far side of the
animal's nose and jerking it towards him, thus
dislocating the neck, while his other paw clasps
the withers. The bite on the neck is deep, but
not the primary cause of death.

The bites on the throat may be found as well as
those at the back of the neck, and are, I believe,
often inflicted after death. They may or may
not be combined with blood-drinking.

I believe that kills, by seizing the throat alone,
or by gripping the withers and biting the nape
of the neck, occur when the attack which I

166 INDIAN BIG GAME

have ventured to describe as normal, is impos-
sible owing to the animal's horns or the position
in which it is standing.

We marched back after this, and I sat up for
a kill which had occurred on the march. It
was on the edge of the most tremendous tiger
and elephant jungle I have ever seen in my life.
I long to be there when the grass is burnt.

I sat up at 3.30 p.m. At 4 o'clock the tigers
(there was a brace of them) began speaking, and
they called and sparred almost continuously until
6.30 P.M. It was then pitch dark. Against all
my principles, I had had to drag the kill. At
6.45 P.M. one of the tigers came onto the kill
and began dragging it. I turned on the light,
made out the dim figure of a tiger in long grass,
fired, and missed.

With all modesty, this is the first time I have
missed with the rifle at night since having the
electric light. The shot was a longish one, and
I undoubtedly fired too quickly, fearing a repeti-
tion of the experience with the man-eater.

There was no noise, and nothing to be seen.
I spent a sleepless night feeling I had missed ;
wondering, and trying to convince myself that I
had hit.

I have put " regrets " at the heading of this
chapter. I know no regrets, no punishment
equal to that of lying awake all night in a machan
after a bad bungle of an easy shot.

We put buffaloes through the next day, but
never found any blood or other indications of a
wound.

Thus I bungled over these three tigers within

"THIS WAS A REALLY FINE BULL" (p. i6i).

^ T^'W^i^^^?^!

^^*^ . -r^i^;

l-ill'"'^ ,% Iff-

iHE GRAND OLD BUFFALO HEAD" (p. 167).

XIV BUFFALO AND SOME REGRETS 167

a fortnight of finishing the chapter in this book
on sitting up. Pride goes before a fall.

And so I marched sadly back on the way to
Travancore and elephant. And when I felt too
sad I feasted my eyes on the grand old buffalo
head.

CHAPTER XV

BISON, A FEW BEAR, AND ELEPHANT

" Methinks I see a hieroglyphic bat
Skim through the zenith on a shpshod hat :
While to drink infants' blood with direful strides
A mashed potato on the whirlwind glides."

I ALWAYS couple bison with this preposterous
Httle rhyme, for it was one that my old friend H.
used to sing when we were out on one of my first
bison trips.

I did a certain amount of bison shooting during
the early portion of my service, as it suited well
for second leave when I was not engaged with
tiger or pig. But I do not propose to write at
great length on the subject, for my friend Morris
has dealt with it more fully and better than I can.

I made a couple of trips alone into Mysore
from Ootacamund, getting one or two bison on
each occasion, but only one of them is worthy of
remark. I hit the bull of a herd hard with the
8-bore Paradox. He went off, but we overhauled
him soon and unexpectedly, in a nullah. I took a
snap-shot, which knocked the bison and myself
over, as I had never got the butt to my shoulder
and caught the recoil on the end of my nose. I
was bleeding hard and dazed, and could not get
the cartridge out, so I made a blow at it with my

168

CHAP. XV BISON, BEAR, AND ELEPHANT 169

hunting knife. The unfortunate 8 -bore has a
gash on its extension rib to this day. Having
reloaded, I flew after the bison. He was bleeding
heavily and his tracks ran through high grass.
Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, louder than
the trackers ever made, and on turning round I
found the bull was following me at a walk, poor
beast, for he was very done. He lowered his
head threateningly, and I killed him with a shot
through the forehead at a distance of four or five
paces. He had lain up, and let me pass. This
was a good bull, and his head is now at Haileybury.

The next trip was with H. in the Billigirun-
gums. We marched up eight miles from the
nearest habitations, built our own leaf huts, and
had a very jolly time. But H. was deeply in
love then and did not take his bison seriously
enough. So, having taught me his rhyme, he
departed and I moved further into the forest.

I shot two bulls without incident. One of them
I encountered accidentally, and killed with a -577,
6 drams and 600 grains hard lead bullet.

Then I had an all-day trek after a real big bull,
an accursed beast who spent his time climbing
up every hill he could find. But this was his un-
doing, for we saw him at last, making his usual
climb. We ran round the hill and waited for
him as he came down. I watched him come,
rested the 8-bore on a fallen tree, and never felt
so sure of a shot in my life. The bullet knocked
him head over heels. Being inexperienced, I did
not fire the left into him at once. He got up : I
browned him, and then had the mortification of
seeing him run swiftly down the hill.

170 INDIAN BIG GAME

We followed till dark. At first there was much
blood, but heavy rain all night spoilt any chance
next day, and so we lost this fine beast. I had
undoubtedly fired too high, and I am sure this
is how most bison are lost. The high dorsal
hump is misleading.

My next trip was with B. of tiger -shooting
days. We each got a bison.

I heard bear giving tongue one day ; stalked,
and came on the top of them ; there were two
of them sitting up, facing each other and howling.
I shot one.

On another day B. and I explored a little hill
a couple of miles from our bungalow. We each
took one side of the hill. I followed an animal
track that ran round the hill, and on looking up
a gully saw gleaming eyes and a black mass
descending with a loud "Woof, woof! " I threw
myself back, and the bear passed over my legs
down the hill, while I missed it handsomely.
The misguided animal made a circuit of the hill,
climbed up to where B. was awaiting it on his side,
and was slain. That was bad luck on the bear.

My last trip, of those days, was alone to the
country where H. and I had been. I had one
servant with me and Coopoo the old shikari,
lent me by C. of Ootacamund. Coopoo was an
oldish man and a good and keen shikari, though
fond of the bottle on off-days. He had long black
hair, a very greasy cap, and features cast almost
in the heroic mould. He is dead ; but I can see
the old boy now, looking at me with his big
stern eyes, forefinger outstretched, saying, " Toch
'em op the wind," as some infernal brute, having

XV BISON, BEAR, AND ELEPHANT 171

caught our wind, would blunder off like an express
train.

This trip was not a success, and it culminated
in a bad a^air. We had stalked up to a herd who
were above us. They suddenly came down on
us at speed in close order. I do not think they
were charging ; they were frightened and bolting.
It is easy to be wise afterwards. Anyhow, I fired
right and left to turn them, and killed a cow
and a young bull. The herd went past on both
sides of us. The cow was dead, but I had to
fire again into the youngster.

I stopped shooting at once after this, and
reported to the Resident, through whom my
father had got leave for me to shoot.

I had the hardest day I have ever had getting
back to Ooty — a 75-mile bicycle ride, which in-
cluded the Segur Ghat, a climb of several thousand
feet. Heavy rain was falling ; the road had
been newly metalled. The brakes of the bicycle
jammed with mud and gravel, and I had to
carry it most of the way up. I lay down on the
road in the rain every now and then, and was
more glad than I can say to get to my father's
house at 10 p.m. We all had several bouts of
fever after that trip, and my servant died of it.
Our food had been short, and the stream from
which we drank was bitter with vegetation.

I went no more after bison until 1921, when
the Jaghirdar of Y. very kindly gave me leave
to shoot. This jaghir was given to the present
owner's ancestor by the British, after the death of
Tippoo Sultan.

I killed one bison at 120 yards ; an easy shot

172 INDIAN BIG GAME

which calls for no comment, except on the long
range at which I was compelled to fire.

The country consisted of undulating forest-
clad downs culminating in heights of 5000 feet.
The grass and undergrowth were up to and above
a man's head in most places.

The work was hard. Our two longest days
were 14 hours and 13j hours respectively.

One day we started at 4.30 a.m., taking a
lamp to light us on our way and to frighten the
numerous wild elephant.

After an hour's tracking we came on a small
party of four bison. But there was no good head
among them. Later we climbed a plateau, which
consisted of a small clearing of short verdant
grass on a rocky ridge. Below lay the deep black
valley whence we had climbed. Around us was the
dark primeval forest, with the mist-clad higher
summits rising from it as islands in a sea. The air
was keen. A wreath of flying mist encircled us.

In front the ground fell steeply into a jungle
of big trees with an undergrowth of high grass
and straggling leafy shrubs. We came on the
herd almost at once, and saw a cow's head some
thirty yards off, but could not move for a quarter
of an hour.

Mada, my head Sholaga tracker — brilliant in
eyesight, hearing, and tracking — surpassed himself.
Whenever the bison made a step or a noise he
glided forward, taking me with him. It was all
hand and knee work, putting aside any twig that
might make a noise.

Once we pulled up with a bump within five
yards of a cow. She filled the horizon. We

XV BISON, BEAR, AND ELEPHANT 173

froze to stone until I feared I should have cramp.
So we went on until the herd dashed off with a
stamp and a rush.

I thought the day was done. But Mada
stripped off his blanket and glided forward naked,
faster than ever. With my boots and the heavy
rifle I could not keep up. Mada seized the rifle
and on we went. We reached a tree trunk com-
manding some sixty yards of elephant track
with clearer undergrowth than usual on either
side, and saw several cows, a young bull, and two
young bison like English calves. Mada then
pointed me out a black mass, seemingly hornless,
and void of form. It took time for me to ask by
signal of outstretched arms whether this was a
good bull, for Mada and I had no common
tongue. " Yes, yes," nodded his eager assent.
I fired. The mass swayed and moved. I fired
again and then again. At last the herd realized
where its danger lay, and fled with the thunder of
many feet. The bull too disappeared. We ran
on and heard stumbling steps below us ; and then
we found him dead in a thicket, with a head of
36 inches — a fine bull, with jet black coat, in all
his prime.

Poor Mada was killed by a bear in 1922.

I then went after an elephant, having heard
from my friend Mr. van Ingen, the Mysore taxi-
dermist, of one that had been proclaimed a rogue
in that district. The Dewan and the officials of
Mysore were exceedingly kind to me in connection
with this animal as well as with the bison.

The elephant lived in the Begur Range, some
fifty miles from Mysore. He had recently killed

174 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

one man by kicking him, after a long chase down
a path ; he had also broken up the greater part
of a man, cart, and bullocks complete, and was
now outlawed. A price of 500 Rs. was on his
head ; so I might, and naturally did, keep the
tusks when I shot him.

I had studied live elephants in the Mysore
elephant stables for hours, from every aspect, as
well as a skull in the Zoo there, and I had had
considerable recent practice with the -470 rifle.

My camp was at a pleasant bungalow, close to
which lived Mr. Channiga-Raya, the forest ranger,
a well-educated Mysore gentleman, to whose help
and society I owe much.

The rogue lived three miles from the bungalow
in a patch of jungle a few miles square, bounded
by hills on two sides ; the Cubbany, a tributary
of the Cauvery, made a third, and a fire-line the
fourth side. This last was his favourite haunt.

The road to the jungle ran through young
ragi fields like green wheat, with meadows of
black clover-like grass in which fat cattle grazed.
Everywhere were the olive and grey tints which,
with the sky, make the typical blue Mysore day.

The jungle itself consisted of big trees and
bamboos, with, for the most part, a dense under-
growth of grass or young bamboo, which some-
times grew fifteen or twenty feet high. Here and
there were lower clearings, with a hundred yards
of view, but vision was generally much more re-
stricted. Beautiful aisles of bamboo clumps were
occasionally to be met with, growing apart like
the pillars of a cathedral ; the delicate tracery of
their boughs overhead was like the arched groin

XV BISON, BEAR, AND ELEPHANT 175

of a roof, and the light below, subdued in the
brightest sun, completed the resemblance to a
great sacred building.

The elephant was marked down from early
dawn before we started. We met parties of
Kurubcrs, wild men of the woods, and these
dwindled in numbers until we reached the
last two men, who were actually watching the
elephant and marking their progress by leaves.
It was the military system of advance guard,
vanguard, and patrols, admirably carried out by
Mr. C.

On the first day we came early on the elephant.
I could see the back of his head and one ear
above the undergrowth. He gave me a shot that
I had studied. I crawled to a tree and, resting
my rifle, had a perfect shot at twenty yards;
but I had to fire through some leaves, and one
bamboo twig of the thickness of a pencil was just
in front of my foresight. This I chanced, and
fired. I heard no noise, and hoped he had fallen
dead. Steps, at first towards us and then receding,
soon undeceived me. I had missed, and the
pencil twig was gone. But my attendants would
have none of missing twigs. My name was MUD.

The elephant had not seen us. In the hope
that he might take the shot for thunder it were
better not to follow and frighten him.

" This is a shaitan, and there is witchcraft in
it," said old Juman, my bearer. " It can only be
defeated by prayer and — money."

We tracked the elephant for long next day,
and came on him at 6.50 p.m., when I found the
light too bad to fire.

176 INDIAN BIG GAME

The Kurubers were good fellows. They had a
great respect for this elephant, yet they tracked
him in all his ways.

On the third day we got news of the rogue
before we left the bungalow at 9 a.m., and we saw
him by 10 o'clock. He was in thick bamboo ; we
were thirty yards from him and a little above
him. Finding no chance of a good view, I
crept forward, parallel to the elephant's path.
Presently I got a clear broadside view of an ear,
and fired. Missfire. I reloaded and, getting once
more a clear view of the ear, again pressed the
trigger. Missfire. I thought of Juman ; the
rifle must be bewitched.

On hearing the second click the elephant
swung towards us at a walk. I could only see
the outline of his head in foliage. I reloaded and
fired as best I might into this. If I had waited
until he was in the open he would have been on
the top of us. The elephant seemed to stagger as
I fired and then became invisible. Immediately
after my shot came a volley, my second barrel
and one barrel each from Mr. C. and a rabbit
of a Forest-guard. None of these hit, but they
made a comfortable sound.

The elephant crashed off trumpeting. We
followed up the blood tracks. Within half a
mile the Kurubers' marvellous instinct spotted
him standing still in dense cover. We made a
little detour and got to within eighteen yards of
him. Mr. C. was on my left, the "rabbit" and a
Kuruber on my right. I could see a dim silent
mass, but devil a mark could I see to fire at.
I waited. There was a pull on my left shoulder,

BISON, BEAR, AND ELEPHANT 177

as Mr. C. urged me to fire. The "rabbit" also
distracted me with his puUing and pointing ; then
his nerve gave and he fired. I turned to curse
him when the elephant, at the same second, strode
forward and stood quarter - right towards me,
leaning somewhat backwards, trunk raised on
high, scenting for his adversaries. I fired. There
was a delightful vision of upturned trunk and
feet, a heavy thud and all was still.

So died the Rogue of Begur.

An inglorious victory indeed. The poor beast
had no chance ; stunned by a heavy rifle, he
never knew where his foes were. Rogue he was,
yet probably as much sinned against as sinning.
He had no hairs on his tail, his ears were in
ribbons, and he had three recent bullet wounds on
him.

His tusks were just over 4 feet. I had
reckoned he stood 9 feet 9 inches on a modest
measure ; but his foot circumference was 54
inches. So I had overestimated his height, on
the usual basis of calculation of the foot circum-
ference being half the height.

I went home and then returned to cut out the
tusks. The news of the rogue's death had
spread. The countryside went out to see him,
and I met little groups of tens and twenties
moving and talking freely where none had walked
of late.

I found an official telegram on my return,
ordering me to Simla at once, so I had to abandon
expeditions which I had planned, after two other
rogues elsewhere.

In January 1923, after the buffalo shoot, I was

N

178 INDIAN BIG GAME

able to take advantage of the generosity of H.H.
the Maharajah of Travancore, who had given me
leave to shoot bison and an elephant, and to keep
the tusks.

I got every help from the Dewan and was most
fortunate in enjoying the hospitality and help of
Col. and Mrs. D.-D. I borrowed everything from
them, and my shoot ran on very pleasant lines.

For three weeks I worked the country round
my host's estate, on the Cardamum Hills and
round the Peryar Lake, and shot two sambhur,
one bison, and a really good tusker.

The sambhur were both long and lucky shots.

The bison was extinguished by the -470 at
sixty yards. An easy shot, for we got above him
and waited for him to come out into the open.

I was after elephant for ten days' actual
hunting. In all the near treks, as well as on our
successful day, D.-D. accompanied me and helped
me more than I can say.

There was a considerable amount of eter every-
where. This is a densely matted jungle of close-
growing young bamboo, twenty to thirty feet
high. A man can only get through it by the
elephant tracks. An elephant crashes through it
like butter ; and when one hears them on the
hillside a few yards above one, while groping
along the track oneself, one easily realizes that
this eter is the most serious proposition that
Indian big-game sport presents. One also often
finds lantana, a high matted shrub of the mari-
gold type, which, like the eter, is equally suited
to an elephant and vmsuited to a man. Only, in
the lantana there is blue sky overhead. In both

XV BISON, BEAR, AND ELEPHANT 179

eter and lantana, except when shooting along a
track, the maximum range of a rifle bullet may be
taken as five yards.

Our first day's work was all in eter and lantana,
in a big patch of which D.-D.'s shikaris had located
a large and well-known tusker that frequented
that neighbourhood. We followed this brute for
hours, and heard him rumbling but never saw
him. Then, unknowingly, we changed on to a
rogue elephant which kept company with the big
tusker. The next time we got close this brute
trumpeted and went off. We ran along the trail
in the lantana, for darkness threatened. Suddenly
the whole track was darkened by the mass of the
charging rogue, trunk upraised, mouth open,
absolutely silent, and looking like the side of a
house made of gutta-percha. Luckily one shot
in the head from D.-D. turned the beast, and I,
for one, was glad. I was too slow to fire. D.-D.'s
shot was purely in self-defence and did no real
damage, for we went to the spot next day, found
the rogue had gone right away, and later heard
of him in good health.

Where there was no eter or lantana the grass
was generally high, except in the Cardamum
forests. There had been unusually late and
heavy rains.

The work was severe. Our longest day started
with a two-mile walk ; then we picked up tracks
of a good tusker, followed him fifteen miles, and
had a five-mile trek home again.

I spent five days on the Peryar, and was im-
mensely struck, not only with the engineering
work on it, but by its beauty, its winding channels,

180 INDIAN BIG GAME

and lonely grandeur. It has all and more than
the charm of the lakes in the Trossachs, with the
additional attraction that the banks and sur-
rounding heights, instead of being monopolized by
the Glasgow Corporation, are in the saner keeping
of sambhur, bison, and wild elephant.

Here, as well as on the Cardamums, I was up
with elephant, and examining them daily, but
found no tusker good enough to shoot. I might
only fire at one. On the Peryar all travelling
was by water in a dug-out canoe. We frequently
saw sambhur and elephant in this way, and on one
occasion ran into a herd of twelve elephants swim-
ming, but there was no good tusker among them.

The elephants swam very freely across the
numerous arms of the lake, which were generally
several hundred yards wide, and our normal
method of picking up fresh tracks was to paddle
round the edges of the lake and disembark when
tracks were found.

We used to start at about 4 a.m., and those not
rowing were glad of a couple of blankets. On
our right, low over the lake, the Southern Cross
showed brilliantly. Broken by the ripple of our
bows, a bright streak of water pointed to the
morning star, shining as I have never seen it
shine elsewhere.

Finally I had given up all hope of an elephant,
and my car was at the door to take me to the
nearest rail en route to England, when my host
suddenly heard news that the big tusker was once
again in the neighbourhood. So we had a thir-
teenth-hour hunt, starting off at peep of dawn in
D.-D.'s car.

^ I

XV BISON, BEAR, AND ELEPHANT 181

We got to our ground, and while the shikaris
were reconnoitring, D.-D. heard the elephant
below us. For elephant and bison shooting acute
hearing is a really important asset to the hunter.

After some reconnaissance we closed for action,
D.-D. having replaced the shikaris and conduct-
ing the stalk. The elephant was in a deep
ravine, bordered on the one hand by an open
hillside and on the other by a big patch of eter.
The col was covered with man-high grass and was
the intercepting feature between the elephant's
present cover and the heavy jungle and eter of
a big valley on the far side.

We got close to the elephant and could see
him, but I could get no clear view of his head. He
moved up the ravine, so we climbed a little and
worked forward to intercept him ; but the
elephant had got a touch of our wind and was
moving on fast. D.-D. turned out of the ravine
and climbed along the grassy crest towards the
col. We were " all-out," with our wind tested to
the utmost.

D.-D. heard the elephant, and signalled to me
to hurry up. A last effort landed us in an open
patch of grassy hill with some rocks. As the
elephant's head appeared out of the cover we
threw ourselves down. He was moving at a
steady walk up to the col to cross to the next
valley. He was seventy yards away and the
whole of his head showed above the grass. An
earlier reconnaissance by one of the shikaris, from
a tree, had satisfied all doubts as to his tusks.
I got a quick shot and hit him through the brain,
for he reared up on the steep slope and fell over

182 INDIAN BIG GAME ohap.xv

backwards, being hit again in the head by both
of us. He fell head down on the track he had
just come up and never moved again. His tusks
were 5 feet long, 17 inches in girth, and weighed
86 lbs. Double the circumference of his forefoot
made him 9 feet 8 inches high.

So ended this happy trip. I caught the boat
with a rush, and in all the journey down I thought
of much kindness, of unselfish sportsmanship,
and of the glorious time I had spent in these
wild, beautiful, and little-known mountains.

DUG-OUT CANOE ON THE PERVAR I ARE (p. iSo).

A. E. W. AND ELEPHANT TUSKS (p. 1S2).

CHAPTER XVI

SITTING UP

The velvet tread of lurking feet
Across the silent hours —

The arguments for and against sitting up have
been raised so frequently that only a brief
mention of them is necessary here.

For sitting up it is claimed that it is specially
adapted to the poor man ; that it is often the
only way in which, owing to difficulties of the
ground or lack of beaters, a shot can be obtained ;
that the individual work done by a man who
puts out his own tie-up, makes his own machan
and spends the night in it, outweighs that done by
a man in a beat, who, though he may have done
the preliminary tie-up and machan work, must
leave the handling of the beat to his shikaris ;
and, finally, that when sitting up a man will get
a longer and more intimate view of his quarry in
particular and of jungle nature in general than
is possible in a beat.

Against sitting up it is said that it is poaching,
non-sporting, and that animals get away wounded.
Indeed, so strongly is this last view held, that in
the United Provinces, rules have been expressly
framed to discourage sitting up. These have

183

184 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

been the subject of acrimonious letters in the
Press, some correspondents unfairly contending
that they were so framed in order rather to help
the man with the elephants at his disposal.

Personally, though I have shot considerably
more in beats than sitting up, I am a strong
advocate of the latter, with the proviso that one
should not sit up if there is a reasonable chance
of beating and circumstances allow of it.

Provided a good electric light is used, there
is no reason to anticipate that more animals will
get away wounded from sitting up than from a
beat. Indeed the chances are all the other way.
On the one hand is a picked careful shot at close
range, and on the other, possibly, a shot at any
speed, distance, or range.

The amount of skill needed to produce a tiger
on his kill on a fair average of occasions is so
considerable that it should relieve this form of
sport from any stigma of being unsporting or
unfair to these fine beasts.

Moreover, in the event of a bad shot having
been made, there is always the follow-up on foot
next day ; a solace denied to the man with
elephants.

A well-known authority on Indian big game
states that the odds against shooting an animal
by sitting up are at least 100 to 1.

Throughout this book I have hitherto made no
mention of the numbers of animals shot, but I do
so now in the case of my own experiences, although
they are not remarkable in any way.

Tiger. — Sat up forty-four full nights ; shot 11.

SITTING UP 185

That is a tiger on every four nights. It
should have been more, but for bad per-
sonal work of my own. Vide Chapters IV.
and V.
Panther. — Sat up sixty quarter - nights ; shot
12. That is a panther every five nights.

In comparing the tiger and panther results
allowance must be made for the fact that the
tiger were all shot over kills while the panther
were nearly all over live goats.

The question of whole against quarter-nights
does not arise in the comparison. If a panther
means to come at all it is long odds that he will do
so before 9 p.m. (my normal panther closing hour).

Similarly I do not think the relative boldness
of the two species affected results. The panther
is bolder and more likely to come to a tie-up than
a tiger. With a kill the return of a panther
should be a certainty ; and with a live goat
chances should be good, provided that the recon-
naissance is thorough and the animal is known to
be about.

Failing such reconnaissance, sitting up becomes
simply an amiable and harmless method of
mortifying the flesh.

I think the difference in my own results is due
to the fact that the tiger figures were obtained
generally later than those of the panther, and I
benefited from the lessons learnt with the latter.

The panther averages themselves improved.
Thus in 1921 I sat up five times and killed 3
panther. The first eighteen times I sat up I
hardly ever heard and never shot one panther.

186 INDIAN BIG GAME

The above figures are not given in order to
claim any special skill, but to show that with
a worked -out system improved results can be
obtained.

The carnivora, except when young or in love,
seldom kill for pleasure. They kill to live, and
killing is as much a business proposition with them
as is his daily journey to the city man.

Unless a tiger has been scared by being fired
at, he means to come back and eat, and he prob-
ably does come back to the immediate neighbour-
hood. In case of the animal's non-return it is
for the sportsman to find out the reason in each
case.

I have carefully examined all my own failures
and embody their lessons under the various
headings that follow. The Field, in a recent
issue, complains that shooting books are too
dictatorial. I certainly intend to be so now,
writing in plain and direct terms for the benefit
of the uninitiated.

Notes on Sitting up where Beating is
impossible

1. Locality for tying up. — Paths and
nullahs are the great highways of the carnivora.
Tie up where the tracks of these animals are most
frequent, selecting, if possible, a spot where
nullahs and paths converge. In the hot weather
tracks will be near water. I do not think it
is fair, even for carnivora, to sit up over water.
In tying up for sitting up there is a larger choice
of ground than for the ordinary beat tie-up

SITTING UP 187

where the vicinity of good cover and water are
necessary.

In choosing sites you must use your discretion.
Apart from the question of a suitable tree, if you
select a place with long open vistas of nullah or
road the tiger is more likely to see the tie-up ;
but it is not nearly so probable that he will give
you a daylight shot as in a cramped quiet spot
with ample grass and undergrowth.

2. Difference between Tiger and Panther
Kill. — Chiefly that tiger always eat buttock
first, instead of the stomach portion as a panther
does. But consult any big game book and ask
your local men.

3. Hours to expect Tiger and Panther to
arrive. — If they really mean business both
should arrive by 9 p.m. Panther are not worth
sitting up for after that hour. Always sit up
for tiger all night. After 9 p.m. tiger generally
come at about midnight or an hour before dawn.
If your arrangements are good and the locality
is quiet, you should have a good chance after
4 P.M. I have shot 6 tiger and 5 panther by day-
hght.

Time should be allowed for settling into the
machan. I find I have to reckon on three-
quarters of an hour to get the light fixed and
everything in its place.

When sitting \ip for panther be seated and
loaded before your goat is tied up. This is
chiefly to avoid being discovered by the goat,
which would then not bleat. But it is also be-
cause panther have a trick of arriving in a hurry.

Once I rode out thirty miles, and got into a

188 INDIAN BIG GAME

machan but did not load. My men tied up a
goat and, as they turned, a big panther carried
off the goat, leaving me cursing with unloaded
barrels and a tedious trek home.

Having learnt my lesson, I was once more
sitting up when my men whispered, as they tied
the goat, that they had just seen the panther.
Before they had gone five yards he lay dead
alongside the goat, which recovered.

You should get good warning from jungle
noises— sambhur, chital, monkeys, peafowl, foxes,
and the like.

There is no certainty that animals will arrive
noiselessly, though there is every probability.
They may come with a noise like a buffalo. If
they grunt or sniff it means that your chance of
a shot for that night is gone.

Little can be deduced from a kill as to the
chances of an animal's return. He may be a
rogue who only drinks blood or eats a little of
the hind-quarter. But these signs may be due
to his having killed just before dawn. A good
juicy kill, half eaten and perhaps covered up,
is the most favourable sign.

I can find no confirmation of the native super-
stition that a tiger will only return to a kill he
has left lying on its right side.

4. Risk of Detection by Carnivora from
{a) Eyesight ; (b) Hearing ; (c) Sense of smell.

{a) Eyesight. — Extremely good and the chief
thing to be guarded against. (See Invisibility,
below.)

(b) Hearing. — Also very acute. Second only
to eyesight. (See Silence, below.)

"A SPECIES OF CROWS NEST."

SITTING UP 189

(c) Sense of Smell. — Poor. I never worry as to
direction of wind. One day I sat up on the ground
in a bush in Bussundpur Bagh in the Kadir. The
first sign of the panther was at about 9 p.m.,
when I heard his guts rumbUng on my left in the
corner of my bush. He then took ground out of
sight on my left and stayed there a long time. I
could hear his breathing. He came up to the
goat from my front, but did not kill and gave me
no shot. He went several times round my bush at
varying distances. At 11 p.m. he killed, and I put
an 8-bore bullet through him. In spite of being
really near me for a couple of hours, this animal
never smelt me. Yet last month, W., shooting
with me, saw a tiger, which he afterwards killed,
earnestly smelling the spot where men had been
standing when they picketed the drag.

Only those wearing leather footgear should
go near or picket the kill. None should go on
the ground between the kill and the line of the
tiger's approach.

Jungle men after putting up a machan have
a habit of sitting at the foot of the tree smok-
ing and making the ground reek for yards
around.

5. Some Essentials for Success : (a) Invisi-
bility ; {b) Absence of movement ; (c) Silence.

(a) Invisibility. — Few realize the necessity for
perfect screening of themselves and their machan.
Many are satisfied with a species of crow's-nest
erected on prominent boughs of some tree with a
good leafy top. This is not enough. You must
get into the heart of dense foliage and then pile
up boughs and leaves until you and your machan,

190 INDIAN BIG GAME

sides and bottom, are invisible to the closest
inspection.

Remember, you must screen below as well as
at the sides. I have seen machans bare under-
neath, looking perhaps like the grid on which you
cook a chop but like nothing a tiger ever saw.

The higher you can get in a tree the more invis-
ible you will be. One of the most deadly machans
I have known was one occupied by my friend
W. on the occasion above referred to. The kill
lay between two close-growing clumps of bamboo.
The machan was in a very high tree, and the
only view of the kill was obtained by parting and
tying aside the thick foliage of an intervening
bamboo clump. The shot was taken through the
V so formed.

Do not for a moment think you can chance
detection because " a tiger does not look up."
This is a sheer fallacy. I have often seen tiger,
both in beats and sitting up, examine trees care-
fully. Moreover, even if they should not look up,
why should we arbitrarily limit the angle of their
vision to only a few feet from the ground ?

Never have sky for a background to your head.
Always get a screen of leaves behind. If your
head must show, put leaves in your hat. A
human head looks like nothing else in the jungle.

(b) Absence of Movement. — This largely belongs
to the preceding heading. Motion means visi-
bility. The more slowly you move the less you are
seen, whether you " still hunt " or whether you sit
up. The second-hand of a watch shows up, not
the minute-hand. If you must move when sitting
up, move by inches and seconds. Some people

XVI SITTING UP 191

peer in all directions, shift their bodies, fidget,
and scratch. Try to sit absolutely motionless.

This year I came on a freshly dragged kill, and
hid behind a tree. I got one glimpse of the white
front of a tigress. I moved my head several
times, as sambhur feeding behind me made me
nervous. Examination showed the place where
the tigress had lain, and from which she watched
my movements.

If you cannot stay still for long periods, lie
down or sit back very gradually until you are out
of sight, and then trust your ears until you are
rested. Your ears will do all the work, anyhow,
after dark.

But look all you can until dark. I have lost
two panther who walked past a kill in daylight
unseen by me until too late.

(c) Silence, — I have mentioned elsewhere how
I lost a tiger through the scratching of a twig.
Wear nothing of leather that can creak. Take
off your boots and belt. Allow no food to be
wrapped in paper. Metal on metal is a sure
danger signal to the jungle. Eat only soft food
in the machan. Try to sit still till dark. At
9 P.M. I eat a light meal and sleep or rest, having
had tea on entering the machan. Food, bottles,
blankets, must all be so placed that they can be
picked up in the dark without noise. Allow no
re-entrant twigs. I always have a strong cross-
bar on which to rest my rifle. This helps aim,
allows use of rifle as a pistol, and greatly facilitates
the silent raising of the weapon.

6. Method of tying up. — Always tie your
animal by a rope below the knee. Stain the rope,

192 INDIAN BIG GAME

as well as any cut timber, with mud or cow-dung.
Whether the rope should be so strong that it
cannot be broken is a matter for consideration on
each occasion.

In tying up for a beat the rope should always
be weak, of course. A tiger is more likely to
return if he has broken the rope and dragged the
kill. A weak rope would therefore seem prefer-
able. But as in my opinion one should avoid
moving the kill if possible, it follows that a
tree for the machan may be hard to find. The
choice of such will be largely facilitated by a
good electric light working up to fifty yards.

On the other hand, with an unbreakable rope
the machan can be prepared before there is any
kill, an undoubted advantage.

In a quiet spot, with unwary tiger, a strong
rope is probably best. In other cases use a weak
one. Use bark rope made on the spot.

Do not waste the tiger's time or your own in
tying up old indigestible cattle.

If the kill is dragged it is absolutely essential
that it should be picketed by a stained and
buried rope to some adjacent root or stem, and
failing that to a concealed peg. Tiger when they
have come to their kill nearly always give it a lift
and a pull and generally move it a few yards,
often taking it much further. I have lost two
tiger through non-observance of this important
rule.

For shy panther you will have to use the old
ruses, such as driving goats past your machan
and dropping a big stone attached to the rope to
anchor the goat as it passes ; or men must make

XVI SITTING UP 193

a noise as they go away ; and (though this does
not really come under the heading of tying up)
you may take a man up your machan and send
him away with some noise after a time. I got
a cunning panther, near the Musketry School,
Pachmarhi, to come out in this way, and then
missed him.

With this exception, a companion in the
machan means failure, unless you have made
your selection of one very wisely.

7. Distance of Machan from Kill. — The
further away you are, within the effective range
of your light, the better ; the less the chance of
being seen or heard. But always reckon that
your shot may be at night. If you rely on moon-
light alone, you cannot get too close. You will
then hit the animals that, disregarding your
proximity, do come.

Over live goats, sitting on the ground, a
distance of ten to twenty feet from the tie-up
gives a good view. Even at this distance one
may fail. During a Meerut week I was sitting
up at Hastinapur in thick cover on the edge
of the jheel. A panther appeared at this short
range and stared at me. I fired, but found no
blood. I bicycled back to Meerut that night
in pelting rain and returned with an elephant
at dawn. We never found any trace of the
panther, and I believe now that I made then the
worst of all my many bad shots.

Roughly speaking, I look on twenty-five to
thirty yards as an ideal distance when using a
good lamp.

8. Choice of Tree or Ground for Machan.

o

194 INDIAN BIG GAME

For tiger one naturally selects a tree for security.
I once sat up on the ground, as mentioned else-
where, and wounded a tiger ; and when he lay
roaring and tumbling just in front of me I hated it.
You cannot have a tree that is too leafy or
too high. In fact a high tree will sometimes
show you the enemy seated behind a bush licking
his chops in fancied security.

The ground and a bush are, however, good
enough for panther.

Nullahs with steep banks admit of roofed pits,
which are very effective ; but they are dull,
stuffy, and afford a limited view. If you use
these, put a lining of cloth for your roof, other-
wise your clothes will be filled and your rifle
may become jammed with sand.

9. Siting of Machan. — I cannot repeat too
often that a thick foliaged tree outweighs all else.
It is a bad error to have your machan between
the kill and the tiger's approach. A stupid
outlying shikari lost me a tigress in this manner
this year. I heard her breathing as far as my
tree, and then she faded away.

On a nullah have your machan on the opposite
side to the tiger's approach. Avoid having it
within sound of the tiger's cover.

In 1921 I had a good tree on the edge of thick
tiger cover. The tiger must have watched opera-
tions, for he growled twice in the night, but
would not come out. If such a site is unavoid-
able, before starting work drive the tiger a quarter
of a mile away by sending a couple of men to
talk and cut wood.

The machan should not face the tiger's

XVI SITTING UP 195

approach. If possible, it should be sited side-
ways, hidden by some intervening object. If
you do happen to catch the tiger's eyes, avert
your own until he looks elsewhere. I am con-
vinced that eye attracts eye.

If you have your machan looking along the
length of the kill from head to rear, your light
will catch the tiger full in the face. I have killed
panther thus. Tiger would probably stay, but
it is a severe test to impose on them.

If there is a moon, arrange so that the moon-
light is on the kill and not on the machan. The
moon should be behind you. There is a marked
difference between the light of a moon that is
against or with one.

Hilly country requires care, lest the tiger spot
the machan from its own level.

Avoid loud running water. The ripple enables
you to move, but it drowns the sound of the
tiger.

If you are in a camp with panther round
about, rig up a little seat in a tree, have a goat
ready, and carry out a preparatory drill. If
the panther " saws," shove on something warm
and rush to your tree. The goat follows five
minutes later, and the panther, with any luck,
five minutes after that.

If there is no moon, tie up any hurricane lamp
with a few leaves.

10. Details of Machan. — The chief points
to attend to are invisibility and comfort.

The first has been already discussed at length.
No matter how big your machan, there is no diffi-
culty in securing this invisibility, provided you

196 INDIAN BIG GAME

select a thickly foliaged tree and, if possible,
go high up.

Comfort, to my mind, is essential for the
Englishman if he is to stay quiet. He is not
accustomed to, and cannot, squat like a native
on his hunkers or in a ball for long ; he fidgets
and probably makes noises.

If you are only going to sit up a short time,
make a chair seat in the ground, with a back and
ample leg room, or use a stool in a tree. If sitting
up all night, have a platform on which you can
spread your bedding, place your kit alongside of
you, and rest or sleep in comfort.

I like my machans to have a platform of
seven feet long and four feet wide. They are
always made of stout saplings. All native beds
creak. I have had special charpoys made with
tape and stout oiled wood, but they all creaked.
All charpoys, moreover, sag in the middle, and
your kit gravitates beneath you.

In a machan of the size mentioned I have my
bedding, pillows, and mattress. The saplings
make the last necessary ; and after 9 p.m. I rest
or sleep, with one ear open, in comfort. In no
other way can real silence be kept all night.

If you are a heavy sleeper, or snore, you must
cure these horrid habits by a little will-power.

For choice let the machan be lengthways, your
feet towards the kill. On the alarm you slip
down your blankets, sit up, and are ready.

Do not try to command many views. You
will fail to do so, and will fidget. Get one or
two good views, and pile leaves high underneath
and elsewhere.

XVI SITTING UP 197

I used to think I could command all sides. I
sat up one day on the ground in a bush, in the
angle made by an open glade which ran from the
outskirts of a small wood. At the back of the
bush grew an overhanging tree. I saw a panther
come out at the upper narrow end of the glade.
It disappeared, but I soon heard it " sawing "
away somewhere quite close. None of my little
peep-holes showed anything, and I was puzzled
until I looked up and saw the panther on a
branch straight above me. She was standing
on the bough " sawing," waving her tail and
watching some goats that were feeding in the
open. I fired with a -577, but heard no fall.
However, we got blood tracks, and found her
dead after a tedious crawl on hands and knees
through thorns and scrub. So much for thinking
I commanded all approaches.

When you have finished your machan, put a
man in it in a firing position. Walk round and
see if you can detect him from the tiger's point
of view. Take no unshod man with you.

I find it takes from three to four hours to build
a machan, with five men.

11. Electric Light. — I look on a good electric
light as very necessary for successful sitting up.
It enables one to be independent of the moon,
and to get further from the kill than if the moon
alone is relied on. I never trust the moon alone,
and always supplement it with the light ; more-
over, in the moonlight the electric light is less
noticed.

I am not going to describe my own light which
I made on a jungle trip from a good electric

198 INDIAN BIG GAME

lamp, with various contrivances for fastening it
and giving it motion in any direction.

Every one will have his own ideas as to the
best lamp to use.

The points of my own light are that it
{a) Has a range, with a slightly adjustable
focus, up to fifty yards.

At very close ranges, unless the light
is diffused, it makes too small and
brilliant a circle.

On one occasion this year I focussed
as usual on the hind-quarters of a kill,
but the light slipped, and the tiger
found a brilliant beam on the fore-
quarter beyond his nose and fled. He
was close, and I used much too concen-
trated a light.

(b) Permits of being laid in the daylight

through a peep-hole. At night this can-
not be done. You can then only traverse
by the beam of light itself.

(c) Can be turned in any direction without a

sound, and remains there.

(d) Lights up the kill and the sights. It

involves the use of no wires beyond the
few feet of cable from battery to lamp.
The lamp is attached to the cross-bar
of machan, and works with one hand.
I bought a patent sight once with electric-
lamp foresight, but it had numerous wires, and
I disliked it.

These are the points of my own lamp, but I
know that it is not the best that can be made.
Probably a good electric lamp over the kill

SITTING UP 199

would be most efficacious. It would necessitate
careful hiding and the drawback of long cables.
I have shot a panther under an ordinary hurricane
lantern hung up over a goat.

An advertisement of a sight to fix on the rifle
has recently appeared. The beam is said to
carry four hundred feet, and go where the bullet
goes.

There is a Liverpool firm which advertises a
big-game tripod lamp with thirty yards' extension.
I know nothing of either of these, and, writing
from buffalo jungles, have no opportunity of
seeing them.

Whatever the light, it should be a strong one.
Flash-lamp torches are too weak for my require-
ments.

My own lamp certainly gives a brilliant light,
and I know nothing more beautiful in big-game
work than this change, by the turn of a screw,
from a pitch-dark night to a sudden vision of
savage life in all its glory of gold, of white, and of
black.

I find neither tiger nor panther are discon-
certed by the light, provided always that they are
allowed to get really busy eating first.

If the light is switched on before that they will
not stay. If the light is not on the animal,
traverse quietly until it is. If the quarry has
bolted, correct your traverse, switch off, and
wait.

With a lamp on the machan beware of leaves
which may catch the light and, while blinding you,
may make you visible by their reflection.

Dry batteries run out on every opportunity.

200 INDIAN BIG GAME

I know no battery that can be relied on to stand
an Indian hot weather. Always carry spare
bulbs. A shot by daylight is worth two by
electric light. Always take a shot by daylight
if you get the chance, and do not waste time over
it. In such a case, whether you fire at long range
or whether you let your tiger come close up, are
questions that can only be decided by your
knowledge of your own marksmanship, and
of the ways of tiger in general and of this one in
particular.

If your shot is by electric light, do not
hurry ; take time. Overcome the natural im-
pulse to think the animal will bolt at once. Take
a careful aim. Either the animal will stand the
light and give you time, or he will be off before
you could possibly have fired.

12. Points in Equipment. — Rifle v. gun : In
my opinion, a rifle or rifled shot-gun is preferable
to a cylinder gun with patent bullets. Every
inch of accuracy that can be obtained is needed.

Night sights should be put on before dusk.
There is no objection to their being luminous.
If they are not a fitting of the rifle, one may be
made of a narrow strip of visiting-card, with a
slit cut to accommodate the bead, and a turned-
up end.

Luminous watch : Good value, but turn the
face of watch to the inside of wrist.

Catapult : Useful to drive off vultures and
jackal. If the former come in force it is odds
against the return of the tiger ; still, you may as
well try.

Hyaena are a curse. Their biting noise is

SITTING UP 201

undistinguishable from that of their betters and
needs the hght every time.

Pull-through and anti-fouling Paste : Your rifle
deserves these, in the machan after your shot.

13. Conclusion. — This chapter has been
written at length and, I fear, in boresome detail.

Yet it is only by attending to the details, and
by their sum, that success in this difficult form of
sport will be obtained.

For the rest, I again urge :

1. Go for a thick leafy tree and a high one.

2. Be as far from the kill as your light allows.

3. Never move a dragged kill : always picket
it.

4. Use a good light.

5. Be invisible, motionless, and silent as long
as you can.

6. Have a comfortable and solid machan.

7. Sit alone, unless you are sure of your
companion.

CHAPTER XVII

VARIOUS NOTES

Rifles. — Every man must choose for himself
according to his experience and his strength.

For the past three years I have shot with a
Tolley D.B. -470 and a -318 Westley Richards,
and I ask for nothing better.

With a -470 or similar heavy rifle in his hand,
a man on foot is master of the jungle. During the
past two years I have hit the following game with
the -470 :

2 elephant.

1 buffalo.
4 bison.

20 tiger.

2 panther.
1 sambhur.
1 nilghai.

1 blackbuck.

32 head.

Of these, 1 bison (hit too high up) and 2 tiger
(1 hit at night and 1 a long quick shot) got away
and were never recovered.

Of the others, 1 elephant, 1 buffalo, 1 bison, 2
tiger, and 1 panther travelled varying distances —
from fifty yards to a quarter of a mile — from where

202

CHAP XVII VARIOUS NOTES 203

they were hit. None of the other animals moved
from the spot where they were first hit.

The only reason for giving these figures is as a
proof of the power of the -470.

It will be seen that following up was reduced
to a minimum. This is an important point when
shooting alone on foot. Also, and no less im-
portant, it means a minimum of pain to the
animal.

Both the -470 and the -318 suffer from the
curse of the H.V. rifle in that they generally give
but little blood in the case of a " follow up."

I used an 8 -bore paradox for years, but seldom
do so now, as it is unsuited to tiger and it lacks the
range of the -470.

I have found a soft-nosed split bullet for soft-
skinned game, and a solid nickel bullet for the
heavier species, satisfactory.

A double-barrelled rifle is essential for danger-
ous game on foot.

One wants two rifles, a heavy- and a light-bore.
I tried a -400 for everything, and made a failure
of it. One cannot combine the qualities of a
racehorse and a weight-carrier.

Rifle Sights. — I believe a rifle should have
two sets of sights with fine and broad bead inter-
changeable.

A fine bead helps long shots in the open, but
for the most part when shooting in dense cover
and a poor light I find a big bead a necessity.

I have shot several animals using an accurate
telescope sight, but prefer the ordinary open sight
for all distances, to telescope or peep sights. The
least shakiness is very apparent with the telescope

204 INDIAN BIG GAME chap.

sight and this is apt to put one off. Also, should
the animal move off, and a running shot be
necessary, one is shooting in blinkers with a
telescope.

I am inclined to think some of the American
sights are ahead of our own as regards illumina-
tion, but I write without personal experience.

Skinning. — One must learn to skin really well.
Few sportsmen are masters of this art. Even
when the art is mastered it is sound to take out
an Indian skinner if good sport is anticipated. To
skin all night and shoot all day is killing work.

Language. — Shooting out of my own country
of late, I have felt more than ever how helpless
one is with signs as the sole means of com-
munication. The more the sportsman knows of
the language the better will be his sport, and the
more he will be in touch with local hopes, fears,
and difficulties.

Boots. — For " still hunting " all-rubber soles
of the best and softest rubber are unequalled.
Next best but not so good are ordinary soles with
patent rubber attachments. Rope soles are com-
fortable but not as silent.

Medical. — One should not go on a long trip
without a knowledge of how to diagnose and
treat simple ailments — fever, diarrhoea, dysentery,
cholera, snake-bite, and the like. The sportsman's
doctor friend will soon teach him this and also the
treatment of simple fractures.

I never travel a yard in the jungle now without
a little pouch on my belt containing a good
lancet and permanganate of potash for snake-
bite.

VII VARIOUS NOTES 205

Esanofele, used in the Roman Campagna for
fever, has been found to be an absolute specific for
fever in the planting districts, and I should always
take out some. A cure for one sick man costs
5 Rs., and is procurable in India now at leading
chemists.

Shooting for N.C.O.'s and Men. — One should
ever be on the look-out to try and get a shoot
for the men. It is very difficult. Near certain
cantonments areas are reserved for them. But
generally shooting parties of N.C.O.'s and men
are not welcomed by the local authorities. I
am sure that with suitable arrangements and
selection of good sporting men who will play the
game, this difficulty can be overcome.

The N.C.O.'s and men have a dull time in
India and deserve all the help we can give them.
Commanding a Horse Battery, I used always to
lend my men tents, make advances of money,
and so on, for this purpose.

Servants. — High-class servants add much to
one's comfort. They increase the prestige of the
sportsman, and they can help to entertain the
smaller local people after these have had their
interview with the master.

Tents. — I have explained my views in Chapter
V. — that is, a single-fly tent, open for the wind to
blow through, with a wet grass hurdle across one
end, under a real big tree.

INDEX

Accidents, broken arm, 33

broken nose, 52

snake-bite, 23

to rifle, 32
Advice, re language, 204

light, 195

machan, 193

marching, 157

medical, 204, 205

rifles, 202

servants, 205

sights, 203

sitting up, 187, 189, 190, 191

skinning, 204

tents, 205

tiger-shooting, 19, 42, 66, 89

tracking, 66, 148

tying-up, 186, 191
Agra, 155
Ague, 75
Antelope, blackbuck, 26, 155

chinkara, 155

four-horned, 56, 72, 85, 155, 158
Arab, 111

AutiuTin running, 35
Averages of success, 184

with rifle, 202
Axe-head, making of, 47

Babu, 153

Bag, antelope, four-horned, 72

barasingh, 151

bear, 8

bison, 178

chital, 21, 73

elephant, 178

gond, 153

panther, 8, 86

sambhur, 178

tiger, 8, 12, 49
Baker, Sir Samuel, 99
Bamboo, 70, 71, 80, 98, 99, 104,

106, 107, 139, 174, 190
Bangalore, 69, 75, 90, 108
Banyan, 39

Barasingh, 150

Barking deer, 78, 100, 155

Batteries, electric, 199

Bear, 54, 67, 79, 92, 108, 150, 170

bag, 8

in cave, 43

cub, 43

episodes, 11, 12, 43, 67, 92, 108,
150, 170

as food, 6

habits, 150

mauling by, 13
Beating, good and bad, 8, 62

methods, 9

signals, 42

with elephants, 14, 154
Beats, panther, 9

tiger, 17, 24, 25, 41, 49, 51, 53,
60, 62, 63, 135
Begur range, 173

rogue of, 177
Bell, 46

sambhur, 62, 79, 83, 121
Bhaloo, 52
Bheliah, 40
Billigirungums, 169
Bison, 1, 8, 72, 89, 93, 105, 111,
115, 135, 168, 169, 170, 171,
172, 178

episodes, 93, 111, 115, 168, 169,
172

goring by, 89

measurements, 95, 120, 173
Blackbuck, 26, 155

measurements, 155
Blackwater fever, 75, 113
Bola, 126

Bonesetter, native, 40
Books, by Sir Samuel Baker, 99

Field, 186

Lorna Doone, 1

Modern Pigsticking (VVardrop), 3

My Sporting Memories (VVood-
yat), 165

Shikar Notes for Novices (Best), 2

207

208

INDIAN BIG GAME

Boots, 70, 204
Broken arm, 33

nose, 52
Buffalo, 159, 161, 164

episodes, 159, 161

eyesight, 162

habits, 160

in beats, 10, 20, 30, 166

measurements, 159, 161
Bulldog, 100, 136
Bullets, solid conical, 107

nickel, 161, 203

soft-nosed, 160, 203
" Bully," 100
Bussundpur Bagh, 189

Camel, 37, 38
Canarese, 116
Cardamum, 89

forest, 179

hills, 178
Carnivora, habits of, 186

risk of detection by, 188
Catapult, 200
Cauvery, 174
Champah, 44
Chand (gunsmith), 32
Channiga-Raya (forest ranger), 174
Charpoy, 196
Chick Massana, 112
Chinkara, 155
Chital, 21, 27, 73, 85, 154, 158

bag, 21, 73

episodes, 74, 85

measurements, 21, 73, 154
Cicadas, 12
Coffee nursery, 109

planting, 89
Coimbatore, 73
Coopoo (shikari), 170
Crows, 39, 146
Cubbany, 174
Cubs, bear, 43

tiger, 41, 101, 103, 105, 107,
108, 134, 162, 165
embryo, 148

Dak, 22, 27

Deccan, 4, 5

Deer, barking, 78, 100, 155

hog, 154
Dewan, Mysore, 173

Travancore, 178
Dod Cara, 77, 78
Doe, chital, 85

sambhur, 83
Dog, Bhaloo, 43, 45, 52

bull, 100, 134

wild, 42, 03, 158

Duck, 56
Dysentery, 43

Electric lamp batteries, 199

details of, 1 98
Electric light, 133, 184, 197, 200

Ever Ready, 133

shooting by, 20, 28, 41, 42, 46,
60, 64, 65, 134, 164, 166
Elephant, 157, 163, 172, 175, 178,
179, 180, 181

bag, 178

beating with, 14, 154

charge, 179

episodes, 175, 179, 181

rogue, 173, 177, 179

stone blind, 15

tusker, 178, 179

tusk measurements, 177, 182
Equipment, 200, 201, 204
Esanofele, 205
Esuf Gul seed, 44
Eter, 178, 179, 181
Eye, attraction of, 195
Eyesight, buffalo, 162

carnivora, 188

Fall from tree, 33
Famine, 36

Farced Khan (shikari), 8
Fever, 171

blackwater, 75, 113

malaria, 113
" Flame of the forest," 28
Following up panther, 10, 112,
197

tiger, 66, 89, 103, 105, 136, 148
Forest guard, 176
Four-horned antelope, 56, 72, 85,

155, 158
Fox, 27

Gandhi, 38
Garstead, 86, 137
Gaur, 72

Goat, 19, 41, 97, 107, 137, 139,
140, 192, 197

Nilgiri ibex, 121

saddle-back, 121
Gond, 153

bag, 153

girl, 63

village, 59
Govind, 27, 30
Gulmarg, 150
Gunguru Kanawe, 86, 137
Guns, Explora (12-bore), 92, 118,
120, 129, 134, 145, 146

12-bore, 154, 158

INDEX

209

Guns, Paradox 8-bore, 10, 20, 168,
169, 189, 203
Ubique, 94, 99, 102, 105, 110

Habits, bear, 150

buffalo, 160

carnivora, 186

panther, 21

tiger, 11, 35, 40, 54, 137, 138,
144, 165
Haryal, 47
Hastinapur, 193
Heat, 38
Herd, bison, 94
Hewett, Sir John, 12, 14
Hogdeer, 154
Howdah shooting, 14, 154
Huldoo trees, 60
Hullah (river), 128
Hussain, 112
Hyaena, 26, 42, 200
Hyderabad, 54

Ibex, Nilgiri, 121

saddle-back, 121
Ice birds, 82

Imperial forest service, 35
Iron-making, 47
Iseri Singh, 39, 40, 43, 44, 48, 52

Jackall, 57

Jaghir, 171

Jaghirdar, 171

Jasmine, 44

Jelly, sambhur feet, 76

Jersey bull, 140

" Jintmy," 108

" Jones," 21

Juman (bearer), 175

Jumna Kadir, 155

Jungle sheep, 59, 78, 100

Kadir, 39, 189

Cup meeting, 34, 40, 154

Jumna, 155
Kanni-Jeddial, 101
Kanni-Madha, 80, 96, 101
Kapurthala, Maharajah of, 20, 154
Kashmir, 22, 150
Kerta, 83, 84, 85, 125, 120, 131,

141
Kheddah, 114
Korindah bushes, 7
Korku, 25, 26, 27
Kurera (shikari), 20
Kurjas, 116, 118
Kurrama, 126, 129
Kuruber, 175, 176
Kwolla, 101

I.al Bagh Gardens, 107
Lamp, electric, 198, 199

flash, 195, 199

hurricane, 199
Languages, 116, 151

advice re, 204
Lantana, 178, 179
Leeches, 69
Lemon grass, 126, 127
Light, 199

electric, 26, 28, 41, 42, 46, 60,
64, 65, 133, 134, 164, 166, 184,
197, 200

moon, 18, 159, 195, 197
Lyman's sight, 87

Machan, 9, 15, 17, 27, 33, 35, 41,
49, 60, 64, 187, 189, 190

comfort in, 196

good and bad, 60, 64

invisibility of, 195

placing of, 193, 194

screening of, 189, 190

size of, 196
Mida, 172, 173
Madha, 93, 94, 126, 127, 128, 129,

130, 131
Madras, 75, 114
Magnum (D.B. -577), 99
Malaria, 113
Malay Kadu, 70, 72, 86
Malialum, 116

Man-eater (tiger), 44, 162, 165
Mango blossom, 22, 27

showers, 71, 110
Mannhcher (9 mm.), 145
Martin, Captain, 34
Massana, 112
Matti tree, 129
Measurements, barasingh, 151

bison, 95, 120, 173

blackbuck, 155

buffalo, 159, 161

chital, 21, 73, 154

elephant, 177, 182

„ tusks, 177, 182

panther, 87, 102

sambhur, 79, 153

tiger, 6, 31, 46, 52, 53, 123, 132,
148
Medical, 204, 205
Meerut military hospital, 34

R.A. Mess, 153

Tent Club, 153
Method of beating, 8

of reserving shooting area, 5
Mistakes, bison-shooting, 170

making machan, 35

sitting up, 63, 64, 165, 166

210

INDIAN BIG GAME

Mistakes, tiger-beating, 62
Mohwa, 36
Mongoose, 143
Monkeys, 106
Monsoon, 138

N.E., 77

S.W., 69
Moonlight, 18, 159, 195, 197
Moplas, 118, 120
Mosquitoes, 64, 71
Mouse deer, 71
Mugger, 20
Mulberries, 151
Mulcher, 121, 122
Mysore, 89, 90, 168, 173, 174

Kheddah operations, 114

Naad, 70, 71, 73, 76, 84, 85, 87, 96,

133
Naad Kerta, 83
Neck-ruff, sambhur, 76

tiger, 18, 123, 132
Nelliampathy Hills, 121
Nelli Kather Hutte, 77
Nelli tree, 77
Nepal, 17, 154
Night sights, 200
Nilghai, 23, 154
Nilgiri ibex, 121
Norton, Major J. H., 3
Notes, equipment, 200

various, 186
Nullah, the, 47, 48, 51, 83

Ootacamund, 168, 171

Pachmarhi, 193

Panther, 7, 9, 15, 19, 21, 41, 42, 45,
46, 54, 57, 64, 86, 87, 97, 101,
102, 112, 189, 193, 197

bag, 8, 86

beats, 9

in cave, 42

charge, 10

episodes, 7, 9, 19, 21, 41, 57, 64,
87, 97, 102, 112, 189, 197

habits, 21

kill, 187

mauling by, 9

measurements, 87, 102

" sawing," 45, 195, 197
Paradox (8-bore), 10, 20, 168, 203
Parah, 154
Parrots, 39

Paste, anti-fouling, 201
Peacock, 61, 74, 106
Peepul tree, 59
Pepper planting, 89
Permanand, 55

Peryar Lake, 178, 179
Pig, 26

Pigeon, green, 39, 47
" Podu," 101
" Poojah," 45
Pootah Madha, 73, 74
Pull-through, 201
Pushtoo. 151
Python, 11

Ragi fields, 174
Ram Huruk, 39, 40, 45, 48, 51
Rifles and guns, 8-bore Para-
dox, 10, 20, 168, 169, 189,
203
9 mm. Mannlicher magazine,

145
12-bore Explora, 92, 118, 120,

129, 134, 145, 146
12-bore rifle, 87
•303 D.B., 99, 110
•318 Westley Richards, 32, 152,

202
•370, 116, 118
•375 D.B., 124, 129, 136
•400 H.V., 15, 16, 203
•450 D.B. Express, 92, 96, 120
•450 Winchester repeater, 68,

72, 87
•470, 18, 31, 43, 52, 60, 67, 161,

174, 178
•577 Express, 17, 99, 105, 169,

197
Ubique, 94, 99, 102, 105, 110
accident to, 32
average of bag with, 202
double-barrelled, necessity of,

for shooting on foot, 203
erratic course of II.V., 15
notes on, 202
rifle V. gun, 200
sights, 198, 199, 200, 203
Rogue elephant, 173, 177, 179

of Begur, 177
" Rogue " (panther), 101
Rope, 191, 192
Rules, division of trophies, 11
following up, 66
measurement of elephant, 177
measurement of tiger, 6
Ruses, 192
Russei's viper, 24

Sacred tank, 56
Saddle-back ibex, 121
Sambhur, 27, 65, 76, 79, 82, 83, 96,
153, 178

bag, 178

" bell," 62, 65, 79, 83, 121

INDEX

211

Sambhur, episodes, 76, 79, 83,
96

foot jelly, 76

measurements, 79, 153

neck ruff, 76

skin, 76
Scent, 161, 162, 189
Secunderabad, 4
Segur Ghat, 171
Semal, 27
Servants, 205
Shaitan, 11, 175

Shikaris, 7, 40, 54, 55, 57, 88, 163,
170, 173, 175, 179

advice as to, 54
Shivasha, 73
Shola, 114, 118
Sholaga, 77, 78, 79, 80, 87, 96, 172,

etc.
Shooting, averages of success, 184

for N.C.O.'s and men, 205
Sights, American, 204

night, 200

open, 203

peep, 203

rifle, 198, 199, 203

telescope, 203
Simla, 177
Sind Vallev, 151

Sitting up,'7, 17, 24, 26, 27, 60, 63,
78, 123, 184

absence of movement, 149, 189

advice as to, 187

arguments for and against, 183

hours for, 187

invisibility, 189, 190

mistakes, 164, 166

notes on, where beating im-
possible, 186

number of animals shot, 184, 185

on ground for tiger, 7

silence, 149, 189, 191

summary of points on, 201
Sketch map, 48
Skinning, 50, 52, 204
Snake-bite, 23
Solitaries (bison), 93
S6t, 14, 154, 160
Southern Cross, 180
Spear grass, 23, 71
Squirrels, 136
Stool, 49, 196

Stops, method of putting out, 8
Strobilanthus leaf, 125
System of beating, 8

reserving shooting areas, 5

Tamarind, 71
Tamil, 116

Taxidermist (van Ingen), 173
Telescope siglit, 203
Tellicherrv, 113
Tents, 205
80 lb., 39
E.P., 59
Terai, 19
Thakur, 39

Tiger, 4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 24, 26,
27, 28, 31, 35, 40, 42, 43, 45,
46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,
59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 78, 85,
88, 98, 103, 105, 106, 107, 122,
124, 125, 129, 132, 134, 135,
136, 137, 139, 140, 147, 164,
166
autimin running, 35
bag, 8, 12, 49
beats, 10, 17, 24, 25, 41, 43, 49,

51, 53, 60, 62, 63, 135
call, 29, 61
calling, 166
charge, 18, 31, 164
cover, mistake to fire near, 19
cubs, 41, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107,

108, 134, 148, 162, 165
habits, 11, 35, 40, 54, 137, 138,

144, 145, 165
kill, 18, 24, 59, 145, 187
man-eater, 44, 162, 165
mauling by, 12
measurements, 6, 31, 46, 52, 53,

123, 132, 148
measurements, system of, 6
method of seizing prey, 165
neck ruff, 18, 123, 132
shooting (Deccan system), 5
shooting (Secunderabad), 4
shooting on foot, 28, 31, 59, 65,
85, 98, 103, 105, 107, 122, 125,
129, 135, 136, 139, 147
other episodes, 7, 10, 15, 17, 24,
26, 27, 28, 42, 46, 52, 53, 63,
64, 78, 88, 134, 137, 140, 164,
166
theories, 35
weights, 6
Tigress, 10, 11, 24, 25, 28, 29, 41,
42, 44, 46, 49, 51, 53, 60, 79,
80, 88, 101, 103, 134, 147, 162,
163, 165
Tippoo Sultan, 171
Tracking, 148
Travancore, 167

Maharajah of, 178
Trees, banyan, 39
big, 39
dak, 27
'• flame of the forest," 28

212

INDIAN BIG GAME

Trees, huldoo, GO

mango, 27

matti, 129

nelli, 77

peepul, 59

semal, 27

teak, 27
Trophy, 120, 136, 153, 161, 169,
177

rules for division of, 11
Tubal Cain, 47
Tusker, 178, 179
Tying up, advice re, 191

Ubique, 94, 99, 102, 105, 110
United Provinces, 183

Van Ingen, 153, 173
Vultures, 33, 145, 146

" Wait-a-bit," 146
Watch, luminous, 200
Watts, Colonel, 34
Weights, antelope, 73

elephant tusks, 182

tiger, 0
Westley Richards Explora, 92,
118, 120, 129, 134, 145, 146

(•318), 32, 152,202
Wild dog, 42, 63, 158
Winchester repeater, 68, 72, 87
Wolves, 23
Woodyat, Maj.-Gen. Nigel, 165

THE END

Printed in Great Britain hy R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinhur^Ji.

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