“One of the most curious features of tiger-shooting is the extraordinary tenacity with which both the Europeans and natives engaged in the sport adhere to certain traditions. In vain does a tiger break through all established rules before the very eyes of those engaged; the shikáris, both white and black, continue as firm as ever in their articles of faith, and, by their blind belief in the same, often lose a tiger. I propose, therefore, to mention a few of the most cherished laws, and to show in the following pages that they are in every instance fallacies.
“(1) A tiger never charges unless wounded, or in defence of its young cubs.
“(2) It never lies up for the day in hot weather in a jungle where there is no water.
“(3) It never looks upward so as to see any one in a tree.
“I have already given one instance of an unwounded tiger charging and nearly killing a beater, and I now propose to show how another was unprincipled enough to break two of the three rules at the same time.
“A few days after the events narrated in the preceding chapter, I and the four others comprising our party were duly posted across a wide nullah (dry watercourse). Gibbon was told off for a tree growing on the top of the bank. The fork into which he climbed must have been quite twelve feet from the ground, so that as I sat in my bush in the bed of the nullah he appeared almost in another world. As soon as we were all settled the beat began. Our band on this occasion was unusually good. It produced a loud and piercing discord.
“Almost immediately was heard the sound as of a horse galloping down the stony bed of the nullah. It was a tigress charging at full speed. Like a flash of lightning she had cleared all obstacles, and was in the first fork of Gibbon’s tree eight feet from the ground, and perpendicular to it. Gibbon fired down upon her, and she fell to the earth with her jaw broken, but instantly charged again to the same spot, when another sportsman hit her with an Express bullet in the back, making a fearful wound.
“The pursuit on elephants now commenced. There were three of them, and each had a line of his own to investigate. One called Bahadur Gūj was much the stanchest, and knew what it was to be clawed.
“Just as this elephant was passing a thick spot, the wounded tigress sprang on his head. There was a brief but exciting struggle. Bahadur Gūj got his enemy down, trampled it to death, and then flung its body up on to the bank of the nullah.... Fortunately for the elephant, the tiger’s jaw was broken, so that he received no injuries worth mentioning.
“The following incidents will show, I think, what a mistake it is to suppose that tigers are never found except in the near neighborhood of water during the hot months of the year. Whilst out with a party of four, in the middle of May, we beat unsuccessfully for a fine tigress that had killed a cow during the previous night. The beat was properly conducted, but no beast of prey appeared. A mile or two distant there was a very fine jungle, but it was decided that as there was no water, there could be no tiger in it. We therefore thought it a good opportunity to organize a beat on behalf of our native shikáris, in order that they might slay for themselves deer, pig, and such like animals for their own eating.