Satpura Range are reputed to have the
power of changing themselves into animals at will, and back again
into the human form. The story runs, that one day one of these men,
accompanied by his wife, came to a glade in the jungle where some
nilgai were feeding. The woman expressed a wish for some meat, on
which the husband gave her a root to hold, and to give him to smell
on his return. He changed himself into a pard, killed one of the
nilgai, and came bounding back for the root; but the terrified woman
lost her nerve, flung away the charm, and rushed from the place. The
husband hunted about wildly for the root, but in vain; and then
inflamed with rage he pursued her, and tore her to pieces and
continued to wreak his vengeance on the human race. Such was the
history of the man-eating panther of Kahani, as related in the
popular traditions of the country, and certainly everything in the
career of this extraordinary animal tended to foster the unearthly
reputation he had gained. Ranging over a circle, the radius of which
may be put at eighteen miles, no one knew when and where he might
be found. He seemed to kill for killing's sake, for often his
victims--at times three in a single night--would be found untouched,
save for the fatal wound in the throat. The watcher on the high
machaun, the sleeper on his cot in the midst of a populous village,
were alike his prey. The country was demoralized; the bravest hunters
refused to go after him; wild pigs and deer ravaged the fields; none
would dare to watch the growing crops. If it had been an ordinary
panther who would have cared? Had not each village its Shikari? men
who could boast of many an encounter with tiger and bear, and would
they shrink from following up a mere animal? Certainly not; but they
knew the tradition of Chinta Gond, and they believed it. What could
they do?

On the morning of the second day, after leaving Amodagurh, the two
sportsmen neared Sulema, a little village not far from Kahani, out
of which it was reported the panther had taken no less than forty
people within three years. There was not a house that had not mourned
the loss of father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or wife or child,
from within this little hamlet. Piteous indeed were the tales told
as our friends halted to gather news, and the scars of the few who
were fortunate enough to have escaped with life after a struggle with
the enemy, were looked at with interest; but the most touching of