had a drop of eight feet on the lower side, and
where it was assumed by all of us as certain that the tiger would pass
lower down the hill, it came on the upper side, on rather higher ground
than the cleft I was sitting on, and so close that I could have touched it
with a spear, and had I not fatally crippled it at the first shot, it
might easily have jumped on to me. But I entirely agree with Colonel
Peyton that it is always best for several reasons to get into a tree, even
though it may not be a high one, or indeed into a scrubby tree so low that
your feet are only some five feet from the ground. In the first place, you
can command a wider view, then you are concealed, and can let the tiger
pass your line, and as the tiger could pass under your feet you are not in
his way, and there would be little chance, if you reserved your fire till
he had passed, in his either attacking you or being driven back on the
beaters. Colonel Peyton, whom I quote with great confidence, is in favour
of a bamboo ladder with broad rungs to sit on, and which will enable you
to have your feet eleven feet from the ground. To illustrate the risk of
sitting on the ground, I may mention the following incident:

Many years ago news was brought that a tiger had killed cattle some six or
seven miles off. The distance was considerable, the news came late, and it
was, I think, about three in the afternoon when I reached the spot. The
beaters were all ready and impatient, no doubt, owing to being kept
waiting so long, and as I did not wish to delay them, and had no ladder,
and there was no suitable tree, I took a seat on the ground behind a bush
which lay on one side of, and about twenty yards from, a depression in the
land through the bottom of which, by all the laws of tigers, the tiger
ought to have passed to the main forest beyond. I had no sooner seated
myself than I saw, from the lay of the ground, that if the tiger should
happen to break at a point in a line with my bush he would probably gallop
on to the top of me before it would be possible to make more than a snap
shot. I at once left the spot and climbed a small tree on the opposite
side of the depression, and this enabled me to have my feet some five feet
from the ground. Presently the beat began, and with a roar, and an evident
determination to charge anything in his way, a very large tiger broke
cover at full speed and went exactly over the very spot of ground I had
been sitting on. At the