kindly offered us a chance of slaying him. Bullocks
are tethered out, over-night, in the places likely to be
visited by the brute ; he kills one of them, and is from
the spot tracked to his haunt by natives, who visit the
stations early in the morning, and report the whereabouts
of his lair. The sportsman then goes to the
attack mounted on an elephant, or having a roost fixed
in a tree, on the trail of the tiger, when he employs
some hundred natives to drive the animal past the
lurking-place.
On the present occasion, the locale of the tiger was
doubtful; but it was thought that by beating over
several miles of country, he (or at any rate, some other
game) might be driven past a certain spot. Thither,
accordingly, natives were sent, who built machans
(stages) in the trees, high out of danger’s reach; Mr.
Theobald and myself occupied one of these perches in
a Hardwickia tree, and Mr. Felle another, close by,
both on the slope of a steep hill, surrounded by jungly
valleys. We were also well thatched in with leafy
boughs to prevent the wary beast from espying the
ambush, and had a whole stand of small arms ready for
his reception.
When roosted aloft, and duly charged to keep
profound silence (which I obeyed to the letter, by
falling sound asleep), the word was passed to the
beaters, who surrounded our post on the plain-side,
extending some miles in line, and full two or three
distant from us. They entered the jungle, beating
tom-toms, singing and shouting as they advanced, and
converging towards our position. In the noonday
March, 1848. TIGEE-HUNT. 51
solitude of these vast forests, our situation was
romantic enough : there was not a breath of wind, an
insect or bird stirring; and the wild cries of the men,
and the hollow sound of the drums, broke upon the ear
from a great distance, gradually swelling and falling, as
the natives ascended the heights or crossed the valleys.
After about an hour and a half, the beaters emerged
from the jungle beneath our retreat; one by one, two
by two, but preceded by no single living tiling, either
mouse, bird, deer, or bear, and much less tiger. They
received about a penny a-piece for the day’s work; a
rich guerdon for these poor wretches, whom necessity
sometimes drives to feed on rats and offal.
We were detained three days at Sulkun, from
inability to get on with the carts ; and as the pass over
the Kymore to the north (on the way to Mirzapore)
was to be still worse, I took advantage of Mr. Felle’s
kind offer of camels and elephants to make the best of
my way forward, accompanying that gentleman, en
route, to his residence at Shahgunj, on the table-land.
Both the climate and natural history of this flat on
which Sulkun stands, are similar to those of the banks
of the Soane ; the crops are wretched. At this season
the dryness of the atmosphere is excessive: our nails
cracked, and skins peeled, whilst all articles of wood,
tortoiseshell, &c., broke on the slightest blow. The
air, too, was always highly electrical, and the dew-point
was frequently 40° below the temperature of the air.
The natives are far from honest: they are, moreover,
dexterous thieves; of which we had a proof in their
robbing one of the tents placed between two others,
D 2