the cause, had quietly placed their boxes on the ground,
about a mile in the rear of us, and seating themselves on their heels,
had determined not to proceed until the break of day.

"All being reported present, we resumed our journey, the men screaming
chorus to scare our unwelcome visitors, whom I several times fancied
I heard rustling among the brushwood on the road side, as though they
were moving on our flanks in order to cut off any straggler who might
drop astern. I never saw bearers go more expeditiously, or in more
compact order, every man fearing to be the last in the cavalcade.[1]
A sheet would have covered the whole party! The tigers, if they had
calculated upon one of our number for their evening meal, must have
gone supperless to their lair, for we mustered all our twenty-four men
in the morning. A dak hurkarah (post messenger) had been carried
off in the same spot two days before, probably by the same family of
tigers, which according to the bearer's account, consisted of two old
ones, and three cubs.

[Footnote 1: It is said, that a tiger lying in wait for a string of
passengers usually selects the last of the party.]

Wild Beast Fights

"Early in the morning, the whole party, including ladies, eager for
the novel spectacle, mounted elephants, and repaired to the private
gate of the royal palace, where the King met the Commander-in-Chief,
and conducted him and his company to a palace in the park, in one of
the courts of which the arena for the combats was prepared. In the
centre was erected a gigantic cage of strong bamboos, about fifty
feet high, and of like diameter, and rooffed with rope network. Sundry
smaller cells, communicating by sliding doors with the main theatre,
were tenanted by every species of the savagest inhabitants of
the forest. In the large cage, crowded together, and presenting a
formidable front of broad, shaggy foreheads well armed with horns,
stood a group of buffaloes sternly awaiting the conflict, with their
rear scientifically appuye against the bamboos. The trap-doors being
lifted, two tigers, and the same number of bears and leopards, rushed
into the centre. The buffaloes instantly commenced hostilities, and
made complete shuttlecocks of the bears, who, however, finally
escaped by climbing up the bamboos beyond the reach of their horned
antagonists. The tigers, one of which was a beautiful animal, fared
scarcely better; indeed, the odds were much against them, there
bein