get one, but could not. In
the meantime an unhappy goat was pounced on and the three young-tigers
took to her teats as if 'to the manner born.' The poor Nanny screamed
tremendously at first sight of them, but she soon got accustomed to
them, and when they grew a little bigger, she would often playfully
butt at them with her horns.

The little brutes throve wonderfully, and soon developed such an
appetite that I had to get no less than six goats to satisfy their
constant thirst. I kept the cubs for over two months, and I shall not
soon forget the excitement I caused, when my boat stopped at
Sahribgunge, and my goats, tiger cubs, and attendants, formed a
procession from the ghat or landing-place, to the railway station.

Soldiers, guards, engineers, travellers, and crowds of natives
surrounded me, and at every station the guard's van, with my novel
menagerie, was the centre of attraction. I sold the cubs to Jamrach's
agent in Calcutta for a very satisfactory price. Two of them were very
powerful, finely marked, handsome animals; the third had always been
sickly, had frequent convulsions, and died a few days after I sold it.
I was afterwards told that the milk diet was a mistake, and that I
should have fed them on raw meat. However, I was very well satisfied
on the whole with the result of my adventure.

I had another in the same part of the country, which at the time was a
pretty good test of the state of my nerves.

I was camped out at the village of Purindaha, on the edge of a gloomy
sal forest, which was reported to contain numerous leopards. The
villagers were a mixed lot of low-caste Hindoos, and Nepaulese
settlers. They had been fighting with the factory, and would not pay
up their rents, and I was trying, with every probability of success,
to make an amicable arrangement with them. At all events, I had so far
won them round, that they were willing to talk to me. They came to the
tent and listened quietly, and except on the subject of rent, we got
on in the most friendly manner.

It was the middle of April. The heat was intense. The whole atmosphere
had that coppery look which denotes extreme heat, and the air was
loaded with fine yellow dust, which the daily west wind bore on its
fever laden wings, to disturb the lungs and tempers of all good
Christians. The _kanats_, or canvas walls of the tent, had all been
taken down for coolness, and my camp bed lay in one corner, open all
round to the outside air, but on