a life-like position that we fired a
shot into him to make sure. When we were skinning him the poor man
expired. In the same jungle, I think about a year afterwards, an English
visitor at my house wounded a tiger, which went into one of those reedy
and cactus-grown bottoms which make tiger shooting on foot so dangerous. I
then declared that none of my people should go into this, and that they
might return the next day and see if the tiger was dead (by no means an
absolutely safe proceeding even then as we have seen). Much to my
amusement a lean toddy drawer of mine, an excellent shikari, went a few
yards into the swampy ground, got on to a small boulder of rock, squatted
down, took out his betel bag, threw some betel into his mouth preparatory
to chewing, and then held out his long skinny arm and forefinger and said,
"Look! A tiger made a meal of a man close to this last year. Let everyone
therefore be careful and get up into trees, and mind what they are
about." The next day the tiger was found dead quite close to the rock he
had been squatting on. A most remarkable instance of courage on the part
of a native occurred when a brother planter of mine was out tiger shooting
on the Ghauts to the north of my abode. A tiger flew at a Hindoo
peasant--a first-rate plucky sportsman, and as the tiger charged, the man
struck at it with his hacking knife (a formidable weapon in the hands of a
man who knows how to use it, and used to cut underwood, and thick boughs
of trees), with the result that the tiger's skull was split open and the
animal killed on the spot. The native was thrown backwards with great
force, and his head came in contact with a stone. He got up, and by this
time was surrounded by the people, when, holding out his hand, he said,
"Look here," and then paused. Everyone expected some remark about the
tiger, but, amidst general laughter--for the natives have a keen sense of
humour--he continued, "There will be a bump on my head to-morrow as big as
a cocoanut." And now, as we have heard so much of the courage of man, it
is time that the dogs should have their turn, and I will conclude these
reminiscences with an account of how a dog saved the life of the brother
planter to whom I have just alluded. I was so much interested in the story
that I wrote down the particulars in my diary at the time and read them
over to my informant to make sure they were right. I give the account
verbatim as I took it down at the time.

Mr.