at the place
where he had committed the homicide, and always guided him off to
some other more secure place, when he killed other men without any
risk to himself. He did not exactly know why the spirit of the man
should thus befriend the beast that had killed him; but', added he,
'there is a mischief inherent in spirits; and the better the man the
more mischievous is his ghost, if means are not taken to put him to
rest.' This is the popular and general belief throughout India; and
it is supposed that the only sure mode of destroying a tiger who has
killed many people is to begin by making offerings to the spirits of
his victims, and thereby depriving him of their valuable services.[5]
The belief that men are turned into tigers by eating of a root is no
less general throughout India.

The Sarimant, on being asked by me what he thought of the matter,
observed 'there was no doubt much truth in what the man said: but he
was himself of opinion that the tigers which now infest the wood from
Sagar to Deori were of a different kind--in fact, that they were
neither more nor less than men turned into tigers--a thing which took
place in the woods of Central India much more often than people were
aware of. The only visible difference between the two', added the
Sarimant, 'is that the metamorphosed tiger has _no tail_, while the
_bora_, or ordinary tiger, has a very long one. In the jungle about
Deori', continued he, 'there is a root, which, if a man eat of, he is
converted into a tiger on the spot; and if, in this state, he can eat
of another, he becomes a man again--a melancholy instance of the
former of which', said he, 'occurred, I am told, in my own father's
family when I was an infant. His washerman, Raghu, was, like all
washermen, a great drunkard; and, being seized with a violent desire
to ascertain what a man felt in the state of a tiger, he went one day
to the jungle and brought home two of these roots, and desired his
wife to stand by with one of them, and the instant she saw him assume
the tiger shape, to thrust it into his mouth. She consented, the
washerman ate his root, and became instantly a tiger; but his wife
was so terrified at the sight of her husband in this shape that she
ran off with the antidote in her hand. Poor old Raghu took to the
woods, and there ate a good many of his old friends from neighbouring
villages; but he was at last shot, and recognized from the
circumstance of his _having no tail_. You may b