two wild boars were bagged, and a large bear got away wounded, we returned to Siligori, shooting wild peacocks and jungle fowl on the way. Dr, Brougham had not arrived, so it was decided to form another camp farther from the foot of the hills, where the jungle was not so dense, and tigers were reported to be. On the way we halted at Titalya, where we found Mr. Davis, the police superintendent of the district, who had probably shot more rhinoceros in the Dooars than any man in India. The sepoys of a Gurkha regiment, which had been quartered at Jelpigori after the Bhutan war, were very keen and successful rhinoceros hunters, going out on foot in small parties and creeping along the paths formed by them in the dense reed beds. They had killed no less than seventy in the course of a year or so, and as the horns are highly valued in native medicine, they had made quite a lot of money by their hunting.
On the 23rd of April we got news of two tigers not far off, but the jungle was so much intersected with deep nullahs, full of dense thorns, through which the elephants could not pass, that we did not succeed in surrounding them, and the wild bees were so aggressive that the elephants were fairly driven out of the thicket at the critical point. Grenfell and Barnard both got badly stung, and the mahouts declared that it was impossible to get their elephants back again, as they fear the bees’ stings even more than their riders do.
On April 24th we moved camp again to a place which a man-eating tiger was reported to frequent, but, after beating down the Tulma river for three or four hours without finding him, we returned to camp. Barnard and Bridgeman were bathing in a pool close to the tents late in the afternoon, and the elephants were all unsaddled, when a man came rushing up with shouts of “Bagh,” and our companions told us that the tiger actually looked out of the thicket close to where they were in the water. We got the elephants ready as quickly as possible, and I was posted down the river some way forward, while Barnard and Bridgeman beat it down from the place where they had seen the tiger. My elephant, a fine large tusker, stood very quietly whilst I listened, and I very soon heard a shot. In two minutes a tiger appeared coming along the other bank of the stream, which was here nearly dried up. A thunderstorm had been brewing and it was getting so dark that I could hardly see my sights when I got my shot. The first barrel turned the tiger from me, up the almost perpendicular bank of the stream. The second seemed to break his back and he fell into the stream, which was there hardly a foot deep, with his four legs kicking in the air. But the storm burst with such extra¬ ordinary suddenness and violence that before I could get my elephant to the place where he lay, it was as dark as night, and the water was rushing over the spot where the tiger fell. I had some difficulty in finding my way back to camp, where the tents were flooded, the fires out, and the dinner spoilt.
Next morning I went out early to look for the tiger, but, after a long search, I could not find him. The body was found not far off two days later, when the skin was completely spoilt. It was very annoying to lose my first tiger in this way, especially as I never had a chance of another all to myself.
