e quite sure,'
concluded Sarimant, 'when you hear of a tiger without a tail, that it
is some unfortunate man who has eaten of that root, and of all the
tigers he will be found the most mischievous.'

How my friend had satisfied himself of the truth of this story I know
not, but he religiously believes it, and so do all his attendants and
mine; and, out of a population of thirty thousand people in the town
of Sagar, not one would doubt the story of the washerman if he heard
it.

I was one day talking with my friend the Raja of Maihar.[6] on the
road between Jubbulpore and Mirzapore, on the subject of the number
of men who had been lately killed by tigers at the Katra Pass on that
road,[7] and the best means of removing the danger. 'Nothing', said
the Raja, 'could be more easy or more cheap than the destruction of
these tigers, if they were of the ordinary sort; but the tigers that
kill men by wholesale, as these do, are, you may be sure, men
themselves converted into tigers by the force of their science, and
such animals are of all the most unmanageable.'

'And how is it. Raja Sahib, that these men convert themselves into
tigers?'

'Nothing', said he, 'is more easy than this to persons who have once
acquired the science; but how they learn it, or what it is, we
unlettered men know not.'

'There was once a high priest of a large temple, in this very valley
of Maihar, who was in the habit of getting himself converted into a
tiger by the force of this science, which he had thoroughly acquired.
He had a necklace, which one of his disciples used to throw over his
neck the moment the tiger's form became fully developed. He had,
however, long given up the practice, and all his old disciples had
gone off on their pilgrimages to distant shrines, when he was one day
seized with a violent desire to take his old form of the tiger. He
expressed the wish to one of his new disciples, and demanded whether
he thought he might rely on his courage to stand by and put on the
necklace. 'Assuredly you may', said the disciple; 'such is my faith
in you, and in the God we serve, that I fear nothing.' The high
priest upon this put the necklace into his hand with the requisite
instructions, and forthwith began to change his form. The disciple
stood trembling in every limb, till he heard him give a roar that
shook the whole edifice, when he fell flat upon his face, and dropped
the necklace on the floor. The tiger bounded over him, and out of