it.'

'You offer yourself on the altar, Brownie.'

'I do, dear; I propose to die in the cause. I expect my proprietor to
carve on my tomb, "Sacred to the memory of the martyr of journalism. She
was killed, in the act of taking shorthand notes, by a Bengal tiger."'

We started at early dawn, a motley mixture. My short bicycling skirt did
beautifully for tiger-hunting. There was a vast company of native
swells, nawabs and ranas, in gorgeous costumes, whose precise names and
titles I do not pretend to remember; there were also Major Balmossie,
Lord Southminster, the Maharajah, and myself--all mounted on
gaily-caparisoned elephants. We had likewise, on foot, a miserable crowd
of wretched beaters, with dirty white loin-cloths. We were all very
brave, of course--demonstratively brave--and we talked a great deal at
the start about the exhilaration given by 'the spice of danger.' But it
somehow struck me that the poor beaters on foot had the majority of the
danger and extremely little of the exhilaration. Each of us great folk
was mounted on his own elephant, which carried a light basket-work
howdah in two compartments: the front one intended for the noble
sportsman, the back one for a servant with extra guns and ammunition. I
pretended to like it, but I fear I trembled visibly. Our mahouts sat on
the elephants' necks, each armed with a pointed goad, to whose
admonition the huge beasts answered like clock-work. A born journalist
always pretends to know everything before hand, so I speak carelessly of
the 'mahout,' as if he were a familiar acquaintance. But I don't mind
telling you aside, in confidence, that I had only just learnt the word
that morning.

The Maharajah protested at first against my taking part in the actual
hunt, but I think his protest was merely formal. In his heart of hearts
I believe he was proud that the first lady tiger-hunter should have
joined his party.

Dusty and shadeless, the road from Moozuffernuggar fares straight across
the plain towards the crumbling mountains. Behind, in the heat mist, the
castle and palace on their steeply-scarped crag, with the squalid town
that clustered at their feet, reminded me once more most strangely of
Edinburgh, where I used to spend my vacations from Girton. But the
pitiless sun differed greatly from the gray haar of the northern
metropolis. It warmed into intense white the little temples of the
wayside, and beat on our heads with tropical garishness.

I am bou