tiger killers. The instrument has been often
described. Mongolian nations, such as Burmese,
Karéns, Shans, Malays, and the Dyaks of Borneo,
instead of planting a bow which shoots off a
poisoned arrow on pushing against a string, fix a
little above the ground a strong elastic horizontal
bamboo, at right angles to the free end of which
is fixed a jagged and barbed wooden dagger,
smeared with poison. The bamboo is then bent
back, and is so secured in that position that
pressure upon a string placed across the tiger's
path loosens the catch, and the bamboo, striking
the animal about the shoulder, buries the dagger
deep in his body, where, being barbed, it
remains. The victim generally dies in a few hours.
Travellers are warned of the position of these
traps by a bamboo cross or frame stuck up by
the path, on either side of the trap, so that
people approaching in either direction are put
on the alert, and avoid danger by making a
short détour. It is a curious fact that the Shan
Karéns, in the Tenasserim provinces, and the
Dyaks of Borneo, make use of precisely the
same expedient to kill the tiger and to warn the
passenger.

I cannot call to mind having met in any book
with an accurate description of the tiger's
cries. The snarling and growling of the animal
when "stirred up with a long pole" is familiar
to all who have visited a menagerie, and
appears to be the only noise the creature makes
when in a state of captivity; but in his native
forest, in the long nights of the cold season,
when the woods on the hill seem to sleep in
the moonlight, the tiger striding along his
lonely path, and seeking his fierce mate, mews
like an old tom cat—or rather like a hundred
old tom cats in chorus. It is a loud and harsh
and grating miau: a sound of dread echoing
along the dreary jungle, making the sentry
pause as he paces on his post by the slumbering
camp; and the solitary settler turn in his cot,
and thank the gods his little ones are safe
within. It is seldom heard more than twice or
thrice. When the tiger is on the look-out for
food (usually of an evening), he lies silent and
motionless in some dense covert close to water
where animals resort to drink, and when one of
these approaches near enough, he bounds out
on his prey in perfect silence; or, with an
abrupt sonorous grunt, terribly startling, which
appears to paralyse the victim, and deprive it of
all power to fly or resist.

The old fable or legend of the "lion's
provider," founded on some base of truth, applies
to the tiger, who is believed by many nations of
India to be guided to his prey by the jackal.
All who have resided in, or travelled about, the
wild and jungly parts of Bengal, where the
main forests border on cultivation, will
remember hearing at night a peculiar wailing cry,
passing slowly along in the distance. It sounds
like the syllables "pee-all" or "see-all" uttered
in a doleful scream, and it proceeds from the
"solitary jackal," whose Bengali name, "Shiál,"
is probably derived from the cry. This "solitary"
jackal is not a separate species, but the
ordinary jackal of the plains; individuals of
which at times depart from their gregarious
habits, wander alone at night in the vicinity of
jungle, and, according to the inhabitants of
such regions, give notice of the vicinity of the
tiger by this weird cry, and attract him to
follow them to some carcase, which has been
discovered by the jackal's keener sense of smell.
In the hot sultry nights of March and April,
people in these jungle villages often sleep out
of doors on their small low charpaïes or
bedsteads, and should the cry of the shiál be heard
approaching, all hurry in-doors, or assemble in a
central spot, armed with such weapons as they
can muster.

The Turraïe,* or Turriana of Nepal, and the
Morúng, names applied to the plains stretching
away southward from the Cis-Himalayan range,
are now almost entirely cleared and cultivated,
but I remember the time when they were
covered by forest and vast beds of elephant
grass. These plains afford now, as they did
then, inexhaustible pasturage for buffaloes, which
are driven in thousands from villages in the
"mud-dkès," or cultivated country, so soon as
the grass dries up in the latter, to graze in the
low humid lands of the Turraïe, until the rainy
season calls them to their homes.
* From the Persian "Tur"—fresh—new—moist.

These herds are tended by a wild and half
savage set of men, acclimated to the pestilential
air of those regions, which they leave only to
make an occasional excursion to distant villages
for food. Here they live, in low swampy reeds
and forests, in which other human beings would
die in a week struck down by malaria. Here
they pass their churlish lives along with their
buffaloes, and scarcely raised in intellect above
them. In former years, before the Turraïe
forest was cut down, tigers were plentiful in
all these pasture lands, and the wretched
"Aheers," or herdsmen, were obliged to keep
in the midst of their droves for safety.
Surrounded by his faithful buffaloes, the
half-starved, half-naked, and shivering aheer felt
himself as safe as if within a fortress. For, the
moment these animals come across the smell of
a tiger, they crowd together with their heads
outward, presenting an impenetrable phalanx;
often, acting on the aggressive, they follow up
the trail, charge violently in mass upon the
tiger should they overtake him, and with hoofs
and horns make short work of him. English
sportsmen, traversing these wilds, are naturally
astonished at the impunity with which a few
unarmed miserable-looking men dwell in a
forest beset with tigers, and are still more
surprised when made acquainted with their means
of safety.

Of tiger shooting in the orthodox way, that
is to say, mounted on howdaed elephants, so
much has been told and written, that I have
nothing left to add. Safe as this amusement
usually is, it has its dangers. To be on a
runaway elephant in a mango grove, or a forest of
middling-sized trees, is something like being