was thrilled with the excitement of
such a novel scene.

Suddenly our elephant trumpeted, and shied quickly to one side, from
something lying on the ground. Curling up its trunk it began backing
and piping at a prodigious rate.

'Hullo! what's the matter now?' said I to Debnarain.

'God only knows,' said he.

'A young tiger!' 'Bagh ka butcha!' screams our mahout, and regardless
of the elephant or of our cries to stop, he scuttled down the pad rope
like a monkey down a backstay, and clutching a young dead tiger cub,
threw it up to Debnarain; it was about the size of a small poodle, and
had evidently been trampled by the pursuing herd of buffaloes.

'There may be others,' said the gomasta; and peering into every bush,
we went slowly on.

The elephant now shewed decided symptoms of dislike and a reluctance
to approach a particular dense clump of grass.

A sounding whack on the head, however, made her quicken her steps, and
thrusting the long stalks aside, she discovered for us three blinking
little cubs, brothers of the defunct, and doubtless part of the same
litter. Their eyes were scarcely open, and they lay huddled together
like three enormous striped kittens, and spat at us and bristled their
little moustaches much as an angry cat would do. All the four were
males.

It was not long ere I had them carefully wrapped in the mahout's
blanket. Overjoyed at our good fortune, we left the excited buffaloes
still executing their singular war-dance, and the angry tigress,
robbed of her whelps, consuming her soul in baffled fury.

We heard her roaring through the night, close to camp, and on my
friends' arrival, we beat her up next morning, and she fell pierced by
three bullets, after a fierce and determined charge. We came upon her
across the nullah, and her mind was evidently made up to fight. Nearly
all the villagers had turned out with the line of elephants. Before we
had time to order them away, she came down upon the line, roaring
furiously, and bounding over the long grass,--a most magnificent
sight.

My first bullet took her full in the chest, and before she could make
good her charge, a ball each from Pat and Captain G. settled her
career. She was beautifully striped, and rather large for a tigress,
measuring nine feet three inches.

It was now a question with me, how to rear the three interesting
orphans; we thought a slut from some of the villages would prove the
best wet nurse, and tried accordingly to