mmediately below me. He saw me at the same instant, and
bounded on in front of S. His Express was at his shoulder on the
instant; he fired, and a tremendous spurt of blood shewed a hit, a
hit, a palpable hit. The tiger was nowhere visible, and not a cry or a
motion could we hear or see, to give us any clue to the whereabouts of
the wounded animal. We followed up however, quickly but cautiously,
expecting every instant a furious charge.

We must have gone at least a hundred yards, when right in front of me
I descried the tiger, crouching down, its head resting on its fore
paws, and to all appearance settling for a spring. It was about twenty
yards from me, and taking a rather hasty aim, I quickly fired both
barrels straight at the head. I could only see the head and paws, but
these I saw quite distinctly. My elephant was very unsteady, and both
my bullets went within an inch of the tiger's head, but fortunately
missed completely. I say fortunately, for finding the brute still
remaining quite motionless, we cautiously approached, and found it was
stone dead. The perfect naturalness of the position, however, might
well have deceived a more experienced sportsman. The beast was lying
crouched on all fours, as if in the very act of preparing to spring.
The one bullet had killed it; the wound was in the lungs, and the
internal bleeding had suffocated it, but here was a wonderful instance
of the tiger's tenacity of life, even when sorely wounded, for it had
travelled over a hundred and thirty yards after S. had shot it.

It was lucky I missed, for my bullets would have spoiled the skull.
She was a very handsome, finely marked tigress, a large specimen, for
on applying the tape we found she measured exactly nine feet. Before
descending to measure her, we were joined by the old Major Capt[=a]n,
whose elephants we had for some time descried in the distance. His
congratulations were profuse, and no doubt sincere, and after padding
the tigress, we hied to the welcome shelter of one of the village
houses, where we discussed a hearty and substantial tiffin.

During tiffin, we were surrounded by a bevy of really fair and buxom
lasses. They wore petticoats of striped blue cloth, and had their arms
and shoulders bare, and their ears loaded with silver ornaments. They
were merry, laughing, comely damsels, with none of the exaggerated
shyness, and affected prudery of the women of the plains. We were
offered plantains, milk, and chupattie