A Desperate Charge.

29

with an angry roar, and clearing, with one bound, an open space, crashed into the nullah again. I scarcely know whether it was fear or speechless admiration for the terrific rage of the animal that rendered my arm powerless; certain it is that I fired too late, and missed him, and he again crouched in the reeds, within twenty yards of me, uttering low angry growls. The elephants, however, again pressed on him, and he retreated slowly before them, still growling most ominously.

In the meanwhile I followed on the opposite bank of the nullah, and M had scarcely finished warning me to be on the look-out for a charge, when, with a terrific bound and fierce roar, the tiger sprang from the nullah and charged my elephant.

I pulled both barrels, but missed, and then the fierce brute fastened on to the roots of the elephant's trunk and commenced worrying him; the poor elephant screeched most piteously, and made frantic efforts to shake off his relentless enemy, but with no avail; the cruel fangs were deep in his trunk, and huge sharp claws were lacerating his breast.

I was nearly shaken out of the howdah; the elephant every now and then went down on his knees, trying to crush the tiger, which obliged me to hold on with one hand, while I tried to extract the cartridges from my rifle with the other; as luck would have it, the cartridges stuck hard and fast, and resisted my most frantic efforts to draw them. All this time the tiger seemed bent on killing the elephant, whose ear was all torn, and the huge brute literally began to stagger from the loss of the

blood streaming from its trunk. At last, I threw down the rifle, and snatched my fowling-piece from Philip, who held it ready. The difficulty now was to get a shot. I was obliged to hold on to the howdah with one hand, while I leant over the front, holding the gun with the other hand; in this way I fired off both barrels, and missed the tiger, but the smoke in his face made him let go his hold, and he staggered back into the nullah, reached the opposite bank, and, before our host was aware that the tiger had left me, it had fastened on to his elephant. He made a good shot, and struck him in the head, but the ball somehow glanced off, only stunning the brute, which rolled over, but, immediately recovering itself, sprang on the elephant again from behind; failing to get a firm hold, he fell again, and then, looking about him, caught sight of M's elephant, which he immediately charged, but a well-directed ball sickened him, and he turned off into the jungle, carrying with him. another ball from M's rifle.

Meanwhile, as soon as my elephant found himself free, he made a bolt for it, crossed the nullah, and scuttled off for five hundred yards before the mahout could stop him, but at last, after great difficulty, we got the frightened beast round again.

As we were hurrying back to the party, the mahout called my attention to his leg, which had been fearfully lacerated by the claws of the tiger; the calf seemed almost torn off, and the blood was streaming from him, so I gave him my pocket-handkerchief to tie above his knee to prevent more loss of blood, and by the time he

The Wounded Mahout.

31

had fastened it on we reached the scene of action. A few yards from M-, in a patch of long grass, the tiger had sought refuge, and apparently lay very quiet, for the grass was perfectly still, so we all reloaded, and approached the enemy in line; we came upon him, but all was over, there he lay stretched out in all his magnificent proportions—quite dead.

Before dismounting, however, we fired another volley at him to make sure, and then gave vent to a triumphant cheer. My mahout turned to me, and pointing first to his leg and then to the tiger, observed, 'Sahib, I can die now that that devil is dead.'

We all felt that we had killed a royal Bengal tiger, and such a one as few shikaries meet with; he had charged us all one after the other, and died game to the last, after giving nearly two hours' hard work.

He proved an enormous full-grown male, measuring eleven feet two inches from tip to tip, and beautifully marked, and so heavy that the joint efforts of three mahouts proved insufficient to lift him on to the elephant.

My mahout was now in such a bad way that I was obliged to take him off to camp, ten miles distant, on a spare elephant. The poor fellow soon fainted from loss of blood, and I was obliged to sit near him the whole distance to keep the flies off his leg, which soon began to swell horribly. Philip, upon whom the encounter had made a great impression, amused me very much as we rode along, by delivering in his "pidgin" English, such remarks as, 'Truly, master, you Englishmen are curious men. Do you really feel a pleasure in such dreadful

scenes as these? truly suppose I never have see this, my no can believe. Ah, Chinamen never can do this kind of business, he heart too small.'

Late in the afternoon we reached camp with the wounded mahout, and managed to wash and dress his wounds a little, and administer a slight stimulant. Soon after, the rest of the party came in, with the tiger and the wounded elephant; and as the news of our terrific encounter had spread rapidly through the country, hundreds of village people accompanied them.

The mahout was at once despatched down-river to Rampore Boleah Hospital, where I afterwards saw him fast recovering from his wounds, and the elephant was sent to a village close by to be taken care of until he recovered. Such was my last day's tiger-hunting in Bengal.

Next morning we turned our heads homewards, intending to move slowly and do a little pig-sticking on the way, but unfortunately, in crossing the Ganges, a beautiful little Arab horse, belonging to our host, jumped overboard and was drowned; this threw a damper over us all, and we decided on returning to Rampore Boleah, whence I continued on to Calcutta, wishing to complete my preparations for the start towards Thibet.

CHAPTER III.

PREPARATIONS.

The Calcutta Chamber of Commerce-Rival Trade Routes-A Liberal Vote-Government Expeditions-Mules Wanted-Hurdwah FairMy Own Muleteer—Hoaxing a Landlord—Start for Assam.

AT Calcutta I found an invitation from the Chamber of Commerce, to attend a meeting of the members, convened for the purpose of discussing the subject of overland trade-routes with China.

Of the two routes proposed as best suited for trade communication, the meeting seemed most inclined to adopt that between Talifoo and Bhamo, to which latter place the expedition commanded by Major Sladen had just returned. In the absence of any published report of their proceedings, the notion had in some way gained ground that the opening of this route would benefit Calcutta, though it was hard to conceive on what grounds. Taking Rangoon as the seaport of Burmah, through which British commerce, consisting mainly of piece goods, would find its way to Bhamo, via the Irrawaddy, and thence by way of Bhamo to Yunnan, it was natural to suppose that Burmah would be benefited by the transit of an extensive trade along her great water highway, but that

D