e had to content ourselves with the cub, who measured
six feet three inches (a very handsome skin it was), and very
reluctantly had to leave the savage mother alone. I never saw a brute
charge so persistently as she did. She always rushed forward with a
succession of roars, and was very wary and cunning. She never charged
home, she did not even touch the elephant or any of the coolies, but
evidently trusted to frighten her assailants away by a bold show and a
fierce outcry.

We went back two days after with five elephants, which with great
difficulty we had got together[1], and thoroughly beat the patch of
nurkool, killed a lot of pig and a couple of deer, shot an alligator,
and destroyed over thirty of its eggs, which we discovered on the bank
of the creek; and returning in the evening shot a nilghau and a black
buck, but the tigress had disappeared. She was gone, and we grumbled
sorely at our bad luck. That was the only occasion I was ever after
tiger on foot. It was doubtless intensely exciting work, and both
tigress and cub must have passed close to us several times, hidden by
the jungle. We were only about thirty paces from the edge of the
brake, and both animals must have seen us, although the dense cover
hid them from our sight. I certainly prefer shooting from the howdah.

Although it is beyond the scope of this book to enter into a detailed
account of the tiger, discussing his structure, habits, and
characteristics, it may aid the reader if I give a sketchy general
outline of some of the more prominent points of interest connected
with the monarch of the jungle, the cruel, cunning, ferocious king of
the cat tribe, the beautiful but dreaded tiger.

I should prefer to shew his character by incidents with which I have
myself been connected, but as many statements have been made about
tigers that are utterly absurd and untrue, and as tiger stories
generally contain a good deal of exaggeration, and a natural
scepticism unconsciously haunts the reader when tigers and tiger
shooting are the topics, it may be as well to state once for all, that
I shall put down nothing that cannot be abundantly substantiated by
reference to my own sporting journals, on those of the brothers S.,
friends and fellow-sportsmen of my own. To G.S. I am under great
obligations for many interesting notes he has given me about tiger
shooting. Joe, his brother, was long our captain in our annual
shooting parties. Their father and _his_ brothe