nd he is
disappointed if he gets an answer in the negative. The truth is, that
though wild beasts are still numerous they keep out of sight as much
as possible. They soon realise that man is their enemy, and ordinarily
they give him as wide a berth as possible. When a grandee wants to
shoot a tiger the difficulty is to find one, and an elaborate and
lengthy campaign has to be organised, and an army of beaters called
into requisition in order to gradually bring the tigers within range.
A forest officer of long experience, in that jungly region where the
mouths of the Ganges open out into the Bay of Bengal, told me that
though tigers are known to frequent those parts, he had never seen
one.

In the hot weather in India English people sleep with doors and
windows wide open on the ground floor, or in the verandah, or even
quite out of doors in their compound, without apprehension. Whereas in
England, where there are no wild beasts, and thieves may be supposed
to be under control, doors and windows are barred at night as if the
house was about to sustain a siege.

But where there are no barriers of sea to prevent wild beasts from
wandering wherever they please, unlooked-for visits are possible, even
if improbable. Animals are sometimes obliged to abandon their usual
haunts in time of drought, when the normal sources of water have dried
up, and they wander farther afield and come nearer to the haunts of
men than is their wont. Occasionally people are taken by surprise by
the advent of a panther, or even a tiger, in a district which they
were supposed to have deserted.

One of the Brothers and some of the Mission boys were climbing about
the hills in holiday time in the neighbourhood of Kala, a small
village twenty miles or so from Poona, and in the heat of the day
rested for a while in the shade of a thicket of small trees.
Continuing their walk, they were startled on looking back to see a
tiger jump out of the thicket in which they had been resting. Tigers
rarely come into the open in the middle of the day unless they have
been disturbed, and his sudden appearance was soon accounted for when
an Englishman, accompanied by some native beaters, emerged. The
Englishman fired, and the tiger gave a terrible roar, as he generally
does when wounded, and went back into the thicket. To dislodge him was
not an easy task, because a wounded tiger is, of course, a most
dangerous beast. But eventually he broke cover again, and the
Eng