one in the way of railways for Coorg, but I trust I have sufficiently
shown that the British and Mysore Governments are equally interested in
doing all they can, in the way of railway communication and new and
improved roads, to develop and encourage the planting resources of Coorg.

The last visit I paid to Coorg was in October, 1891, immediately after the
breaking up of the Representative Assembly at Mysore, a full account of
which I have given in a previous chapter. I left Mysore on the morning of
Tuesday, October 20th, and on the first day drove to Hunsur, a town of
between four and five thousand inhabitants, which lies twenty-eight miles
to the west of Mysore city. At this place are the extensive coffee works
and manure preparing establishment of Messrs. Matheson and Co., by whose
manager I was most hospitably and agreeably entertained. Rather an
interesting incident in connection with a panther had once occurred at his
house, and as this illustrates what I have previously mentioned as to the
(to man) innocuous character of this animal, it may not be uninteresting
to give an account of what occurred. The circumstances were these.

One night my hostess, some time after retiring to rest, heard a noise in
the open veranda which runs round the side of the bungalow just outside
her bedroom. She got up, and, taking a lamp in her hand, went round a
corner of the building in the direction of the noise, and just as she
turned the corner in question there fell upon her astonished vision the
spectacle of a panther, which at the moment was busily engaged in
devouring the family cat. When the panther saw the lady he tried to make
off along the veranda (which at that point was shut in at the side by a
trellis-work), but at the moment of his flight the cook, who had also
heard the noise, appeared at the opposite end of the veranda with a lamp
in his hand. The panther then turned back in the direction of the lady,
who stood spell-bound with the lamp in her hand, and as the cook,
apparently equally spell-bound, remained stationary with his lamp, the
panther, being thus as it were between two fires, lay down under a table
which was placed against the wall of the veranda. At last he got up, made
a move in the direction of the cook, and then changing his mind, rushed
past the lady, and thus made his escape. Panthers seem to be numerous
about Hunsur, and I heard another interesting story of their boldness,
which I have not space to give