vely on
no account to take them by their tails.

'For snakes it is the proper way,' he said sagaciously, 'since snakes
can only double half their length. But tigers double their whole
length, and they object to it. To every creature its own proper
treatment.'

But there was no doubt of the sincerity of our instructors, nor of
their eagerness to be of use to us in any way. Next morning, when we
started out, the headman came with us some distance, on purpose to
instruct the guide he had assigned to us, a stupid-looking youth, who
seemed afraid. He told him: 'Try first over there among the boulders,
and when you have exhausted that resort, go down to the ravine, and
thence beat upwards to the mountain-top. Please God, your Honours will
return with half a hundred of those tigers which devour our crops.'

Thus sped with hope, we set out in good spirits, expecting not a bag
of fifty tigers, to speak truly, but the final settlement of a dispute
which had long raged among us, as to what those famous tigers really
were. Rashid would have it they were leopards, I said lynxes, and our
English friend, in moments of depression, thought of polecats. But,
though we scoured the mountain all that day, advancing with the
utmost caution and in open order, as our guide enjoined, we saw no
creature of the feline tribe. Lizards, basking motionless upon the
rocks, slid off like lightning when aware of our approach. Two
splendid eagles from an eyrie on the crags above hovered and wheeled,
observing us, their shadows like two moving spots of ink upon the
mountain-side. A drowsy owl was put up from a cave, and one of our
adherents swore he heard a partridge calling. No other living creature
larger than a beetle did we come across that day.

Returning to the camp at evening, out of temper, we were met by all
the village, headed by the sheykh, who loudly hoped that we had had
good sport, and brought home many tigers to provide a feast. When he
heard that we had not so much as seen a single one he fell upon the
luckless youth who had been told off to conduct us, and would have
slain him, I believe, had we not intervened.

'Didst seek in all the haunts whereof I told thee? Well I know thou
didst not, since they saw no tiger! Behold our faces blackened through
thy sloth and folly, O abandoned beast!'

Restrained by force by two of our adherents, the sheykh spat
venomously at the weeping guide, who swore by Allah that he had obeyed
instruction