f tigers on
foot, but the numerous fatal accidents recorded every year, plainly
shew the danger of such a mode of shooting.

In Central India, in the North-west, indeed in most districts where
elephants are not easily procurable, it is customary to erect
_mychans_ or bamboo platforms on trees. A line of beaters, with
tom-toms, drums, fireworks, and other means for creating a din, are
then sent into the jungle, to beat the tigers up to the platform on
which you sit and wait. This is often a successful mode if you secure
an advantageous place, but accidents to the beaters are very common,
and it is at best a weary and vexatious mode of shooting, as after all
your trouble the tiger may not come near your _mychan_, or give you
the slightest glimpse of his beautiful skin.

I have only been out after tiger on foot on one occasion. It was in
the sal jungles in Oudh. A neighbour of mine, a most intimate and dear
friend, whom I had nicknamed the 'General,' and a young friend,
Fullerton, were with me. A tigress and cub were reported to be in a
dense patch of _nurkool_ jungle, on the banks of the creek which
divided the General's cultivation from mine. The nurkool is a tall
feathery-looking cane, very much relished by elephants. It grows in
dense brakes, and generally in damp boggy ground, affording complete
shade and shelter for wild animals, and is a favourite haunt of pig,
wolf, tiger, and buffalo.

We had only one elephant, the use of which Fullerton had got from a
neighbouring Baboo. It was not a staunch animal, so we put one of our
men in the howdah, with a plentiful supply of bombs, a kind of native
firework, enclosed in a clay case, which burns like a huge squib, and
sets fire to the jungle. Along with the elephant we had a line of
about one hundred coolies, and several men with drums and tom-toms.
Fullerton took the side nearest the river, as it was possible the
brute might sneak out that way, and make her escape along the bank.
The General's shekarry remained behind, in rear of the line of
beaters, in case the tigress might break the line, and try to escape
by the rear. My _Gomasta_, the General, and myself, then took up
positions behind trees all along the side of the glade or dell in
which was the bit of nurkool jungle.

It was a small basin, sloping gently down to the creek from the sal
jungle, which grew up dark and thick all around. A margin of close
sward, as green and level as a billiard-table, encircled the