although it is difficult to beat on account of the thorns,
tigers are not unfrequently found among the gloomy recesses of a good
kair scrub.

As they entered this jungle, some of the men were loitering behind.
When the elephants had passed about halfway through, the men came
rushing up pell mell, with consternation on their faces, reporting
that a huge tiger had sprung out on them, and carried off one of their
number. The Major and the elephants hurried back, and met the man
limping along, bleeding from several scratches, and with a nasty bite
in his shoulder, but otherwise more frightened than hurt. The tiger
had simply knocked him down, stood over him for a minute, seized him
by the shoulder, and then dashed on through the scrub, leaving him
behind half dead with pain and fear.

It was most amusing to hear the fat little Major relate the story. He
went through all the by-play incident to the piece, and as he got
excited, stood right up on his narrow pad. His gesticulations were
most vehement, and as the elephant was rather unsteady, and his
footing to say the least precarious, he seemed every moment as if he
must topple over. The old warrior, however, was equal to the occasion;
without for an instant abating the vigour of his narrative, he would
clutch at the greasy, matted locks of his mahout, and steady himself,
while he volubly described incident after incident. As he warmed with
his subject, and tried to shew us how the tiger must have pounced on
the man, he would let go and use his hands in illustration; the old
elephant would give another heave, and the fat little man would make
another frantic grab at the patient mahout's hair. The whole scene was
most comical, and we were in convulsions of laughter.

The news, however, foreboded ample sport; we now had certain _khubber_
of at least two tigers; we were soon under weigh; the wounded man had
been sent back to the Major's head-quarters on an elephant, and in
time recovered completely from his mauling. As we jogged along, we had
a most interesting talk with the Major Capt[=a]n. He was wonderfully
well informed, considering he had never been out of Nepaul. He knew all
about England, our army, our mode of government, our parliament, and
our Queen; whenever he alluded to Her Majesty he salaamed profoundly,
whether as a tribute of respect to her, or in compliment to us as loyal
subjects, we could not quite make out. He described to us the route
home by the Suez can