r, you might have
fancied from the universal terror which prevailed, that it was a day of
judgment to which the inhabitants had been summoned.

It was not a day of mercy. The slaughter commenced; shot after shot
laid them in the dust, while the natives, on their Arabians, charged
with their spears into the thickest of the crowd, regardless of the risk
which they encountered from the muskets of other parties. The baying of
the large dogs, who tore down their victims, the din occasionally
increased by the contention and growls of the assailed, the yells of the
natives, and the shrill cries of the elephants, raised, in obedience to
their conductors, to keep the more ferocious animals at a distance,
formed a scene to which no pen can do justice. In a few minutes all was
over; those who had escaped were once more hid, panting, in the
neighbouring jungles, while those who had fallen covered the ground, in
every direction, and in every variety.

"Very fine tiger-hunt, sar," observed the interpreter to Courtenay, with
exultation.

"Very fine indeed: Seymour, this is something like a battue. What would
some of your English sportsmen have given to have been here? But,
interpreter, I don't see any tigers."

"Great tigers? No, sar, no great tiger in this country. Call dis
tiger?" said the man, pointing with his finger to a prostrate leopard.

Such is the case--the regal Bengal tiger, as well as his rival the lion,
admits of no copartnership in his demesnes. On the banks of the
impetuous rivers of India, he ranges, alone, the jungles which supply
his wants, and permits them not to be poached by inferior sportsmen.
Basking his length in the sun and playing about his graceful tail, he
prohibits the intrusion of the panther or the leopard. His majestic
compeer seems to have entered into an agreement with him, that they
shall not interfere with each other's manorial rights, and where you
find the royal tiger, you need not dread the presence of the lion. Each
has established his dominion where it has pleased him, both respecting
each other, and leaving the rest of the world to be preyed upon by their
inferiors.

"Well, Prose, how many did you kill?"

"Why, to tell you the truth, Seymour, I never fired my musket. I was so
astonished and so frightened that I could not; I never believed that
there were so many beasts in the whole universe."

"I am convinced," observed Macallan, "that I saw an animal hitherto
undescribed