lessing to India, to-day, does not admit of an
argument." We frankly acknowledged very modified feelings upon the
subject since arriving in the country.

Wild animals are abundant in the neighborhood, the tiger especially
being hunted and feared, and not without abundant reason; for here, as
at Singapore, men, women, and children are daily sacrificed to their
rapacious appetites in some part of the district. It is said to be a
fact that these animals, in their wild state, having once tasted human
flesh, will be satisfied with no other food; but will leave the antelope
and smaller game, known to be comparatively plenty in the neighborhood
of the jungle, and lie in wait for days to capture human prey, even
stealing at night within the precincts of the villages, and among the
native huts. They exhibit great cunning in their attacks, rarely showing
themselves when there is more than one person present, and never doing
so where there are numbers, except when driven in the hunt. Instinct
teaches them that one individual may be overcome, but that two or three
are capable of victoriously defending themselves. The natives set
ingenious traps for the tigers, and many are captured, for which they
receive a bounty. The usual trap is formed by digging a well in the
earth, ten feet square and fifteen feet or more in depth, wider at the
bottom than the top. This is ingeniously covered with light branches and
leaves, and located in the path where a tiger has been tracked. For some
reason this animal, having once passed through a jungle, will ever after
follow as nearly as possible his own foot-prints, and can thus easily
be led into a pitfall of the character we have described. Having once
got into this well he cannot possibly get out, and here he is permitted
to become so nearly starved as to deprive him of all powers of
resistance, in which condition he is secured. A little food and water
soon restores him to his normal condition, when he finds himself a
prisoner in a stout cage, behind strong iron bars. For a few days after
his capture the animal's rage knows no bounds, and his struggles to free
himself are ceaseless, sometimes even ending in self-inflicted death by
dashing himself head foremost upon the bars. If not an old animal, he,
however, generally subsides into sullen acceptance of the situation
after a day or two.

We were shown half a dozen lately taken and confined separately in
strong cages in one of the open squares of