fired at all."

"When he made his first leap from the thicket," he said quietly. "I
feared he was going to land directly on you. The shot turned him."

At this the three discomfited claimants of the tiger-skin (which
belongs to him who kills) with the heartiest English good-nature burst
into roars of laughter, each at himself as well as the others, and
warmly shook Bhima's hand amid a general outbreak of applause from the
whole company.

Then amid a thousand jokes the tiffin-baskets were brought out, and we
had a royal lunch while the tiger was "padded"--i.e., placed on one
of the unoccupied elephants; and finally we got us back to camp, where
the rest of the day was devoted to dinner and cheroots.

From the tiger to the town, from the cries of jackals to those of
street-venders,--this is an easy transition in India; and it was only
the late afternoon of the second day after the tiger-hunt when my
companion and I were strolling along the magnificent Esplanade of
Calcutta, having cut across the mountains, elephant-back, early in the
morning to a station where we caught the down-train.

[Illustration: BENGALESE OF LOW CASTE.]

Solidity, wealth, trade, ponderous ledgers, capacious ships'
bottoms, merchandise transformed to magnificence, an ample-stomached
_bourgeoisie_,--this is what comes to one's mind as one faces the
broad walk in front of Fort William and looks across the open space to
the palaces, the domes, the columns of modern and English Calcutta;
or again as one wanders along the strand in the evening when the
aristocrats of commerce do congregate, and, as it were, gazette the
lengths of their bank-balances in the glitter of their equipages and
appointments; or again as one strolls about the great public gardens
or the amplitudes of Tank Square, whose great tank of water suggests
the luxury of the dwellers hereabout; or the numerous other paths of
comfort which are kept so by constant lustrations from the skins
of the water-bearers. The whole situation seems that of ease and
indulgence. The very circular verandahs of the rich men's dwellings
expand like the ample vests of trustees and directors after dinner.
The city extends some four and a half miles along the left bank of the
Hooghly, and its breadth between the "Circular Road" and the river
is about a mile and a half. If one cuts off from this space that part
which lies south of a line drawn eastward from the Beebee Ross Ghat
to the Upper Circular Road-