A BAD SHOT AT A TIGER.

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standing at attention, on After a minute or two, hill, the stones rattling We then went to the

hair round his thick neck, another spur of the hill. he turned and ran up the and clicking behind him. place where we had heard the noise, and, after some search, found my stag lying dead against the trunk of a small tree. We returned to the tent, and sent a cart for the deer. The sambur is very much larger than the red deer of England. It is from thirteen to fourteen hands high, as large and heavy, in fact, as a big pony.

Nothing more worth noting occurred for several days, during which many sambur, hog, and neilghye, were seen, but none shot. One morning we came across a sow's nest. It was formed of long grass, which the sow had plucked and heaped up, and arranged very nicely, and had, in fact, woven it together. There was a complete thatch of grass over it, and an aperture for entrance and exit in the middle of one side of the nest. It was empty, and appeared not to have been used.

We then changed camp to a village, Warragaum, about three miles from Seldoo, and here I saw several bear and sambur; but got none, partly from bad luck, and partly from bad shooting. Thence we moved about ten miles to Tarsee, and in the afternoon I went out and saw the fresh pugs of a tiger on the muddy border of a tank near my tent. Next day we went to explore the jungle, and, on the bank of a thickly-wooded nullah, found the remains of a neilghye which had been killed in the morning, and half eaten, by a tiger. We were beating this nullah with about twenty beaters, and, after going on about half a mile, we heard a grunting noise, a sort of

double-knock grunt, in a thick clump of grass and thorn-bushes near my elephant, and the next moment a tremendous big tiger bounded out. He made two springs over a small open space, and was immediately lost to view in another thicket. I fired two very rapid snap shots at him, but without effect. Continuing the beat along the nullah, he was put up again by the people, who scattered right and left as he roared and ramped in the bushes. Very unluckily, I was in a thick place just then, and could not see the tiger, and he broke back, and, in spite of all our efforts, we could not find him again. The country was covered with dense thorny jungle and long grass, and he escaped. Nothing else occurred during the remainder of our outing.

The year 1862 began badly with me in a sporting sense. Having heard of a tigress, with cubs, which had been killing bullocks at a great rate at Furreedgaum, a village about twenty-four miles south-east of Kamptee; I went out and encamped at Masoolgoontah, about two miles short of Furreedgaum. Nothing happened on that or on the next day, but late in the afternoon of the 25th it was reported that two bullocks had been killed the preceding night in a large nullah close to Furreedgaum. I had two elephants with me, not good ones, but I had to make the best of them. Their names were "Woosnoo" and "Munnoo," and they were inseparable friends, so much so, that one was never taken anywhere without the other. By the time the elephants were ready it was 5 o'clock, and we did not reach the nullah until close on sunset. My shikarry and the beaters went into the cover, and presently I saw, indistinctly, three animals moving in the bushes on the farther

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bank of the watercourse. Before I could get a shot at them they had disappeared, and shortly afterwards the beaters came up. A grunting roar, and general dispersion of the people, showed that the tigress was quite alive to what was going on. She had with her two great cubs as large as panthers. The next moment, the beaters, now up in trees, shouted that the tigers had left the nullah, and we crossed it, and went after them. We had only just crossed over, when one of the cubs came into a piece of open grass land, and squatted. We were just going up to it, when the tigress burst out of a clump of bushes, and charged the elephant, which immediately wheeled round and prepared to bolt. The tigress then galloped off, and I sent a bullet after her, ineffectually, as may be supposed, for my beast of an elephant was spinning round like a top. It was now nearly dark; we tried to find the tigers again, but could not, so returned, discomfited, to camp. The villagers knew of the kill early in the morning, but did not take the trouble to let us know, and the news got to us indirectly, some passers by having told it to my shikarry. But for the apathy, or worse, of the villagers, we should have had time to follow up, and probably kill, the tigress and cubs. Next morning, a messenger came to call me back at once to Kamptee, as a movement of troops to occupy the Saugor and Nerbadda stations, hitherto garrisoned by Bengal regiments, had been received, and I returned to cantonments in order to arrange for supply warnings, camp equipage, &c. for the movement.

About this time I had a great deal to do in the way of improvements in the station, as I was Executive Officer of the Kamptee Municipal Commission, which

was becoming a great institution, and which had a yearly income of about a lakh of rupees (£10,000), derived from Octroi duties. Mr., now Sir Richard, Temple was Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, and gave me his support in my duties in every way. I felt that, with him to rely upon, everything would go well. I therefore prepared and submitted several large projects for improvements, and carried them out during the next three years. The chief among them were the "Temple Gardens," the "Bandstand and Garden," "Bunselal's Tank," near the cavalry race-course, so named because that native millionaire contributed 5,000 rupees towards the 30,000 rupees which it cost. A very large "Serai " (rest-house) for native travellers, close to the marketplace, besides many smaller works-tanks, bridges, roads, tree plantations, &c. All these, and the necessity of keeping a strict watch over conservancy matters, fully occupied my mornings, and I seldom had less than from three to four hours' employment in these ways, riding over, perhaps, one half of the station each morning; but it was a labour of love, and I much enjoyed seeing these large works grow under my hands to completion.

On the 23rd March I went out on another hotweather shooting excursion, and had some success. At Sindeheeree I shot a neilghye and a barking-deer, and saw several neilghye and some sambur. Thence I went on about ten miles to a wild and lonely jungle, with a small village, Dongergaum (the village of the rocky hill), about a mile from my camp. There were two little water-springs in this jungle, not far from my tent. The morning after we arrived at Dongergaum, I went out on an elephant, and circled round

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some hills which stood in the jungle near the camp. After going about a mile, we saw a blue bull (male of the neilghye); but he went off, as did also a herd of seven or eight females which joined him. A startling thing now happened: sitting in the howdah, I was parting aside the branches of a tree, when I saw that I had grasped a bough on which a small snake was coiled. I was rather prompt than otherwise in quitting my grasp, and the snake, no less discomposed, fell with a flop, and was lost to sight in the dry leaves which strewed the ground. I do not think it was a poisonous snake. Whether or not, such adventures are not pleasant. We now saw four sambur on the hill-side, and I got off the elephant, and went after them. The top of the hill was a long narrow ridge, like a hog's back. When we had got to the summit, the sambur had moved, and were standing much lower down. I got a shot at a doe (there were no stags), for we wanted meat in camp badly, and wounded it; but it hobbled off, and we did not bag it for some time. Just after we got the sambur, a bear walked out of a small ravine, and went along the hill-side. We soon got above him, and he stood looking at us. I fired, and he rolled down, and stopped in a small thicket, where I finished him. We tied him behind the howdah, and returned to camp, seeing another herd of neilghye on the way back.

Nothing more worth noting occurred until we reached Chankee Copra, a double village on both banks of a small river, which divides Chankee on the left bank from Copra on the right. The tent was pitched in a mango-grove, close to the river on the Copra side; and, hearing that a tigress and two cubs