on your bed too,” he added with an air of great satisfaction—­in fact he seemed to attach more importance to that than to anything connected with the transaction.  I had given him up my bed because it was a broad one, and so most convenient for resting his lacerated arms.  The natives were certain that he would die, and I felt a great triumph in bringing him round.  The great thing with wounds of that kind is of course to cleanse them well, and apply carbolic if you have it (I had none on this occasion) and afterwards cover the wounds with damp lint, which should be kept constantly moist by frequent applications of water.  This was done in the case I have alluded to.  The arms, of course, swelled greatly, and the heat arising from them was very great, hence the need for the constant application of water.  The flow of blood from the arms was checked by a tourniquet.

I never but once heard of a mad tiger.  This animal was made over in an inoculated condition by a friend of mine to the Garden in Bangalore.  He had caught it when out tiger shooting, and, when on the way to Bangalore, he had chained it outside his tent where it was attacked and bitten by what turned out to be a mad Pariah dog.

Before concluding this chapter I must say a few words, which perhaps ought to have been said at an earlier period, as regards one of the most important points of tiger shooting—­i.e., that of taking up such a position as will enable you to fire to right or left without moving your body, or rather I should say without moving it more than in a most infinitesimal degree, for, as I have previously shown, it is movement of any kind which alone readily attracts the attention of an animal.  It is evident that, if you sit facing the point from which the tiger is expected, though you can readily fire at him without moving if he passes to your left (and, as has been shown, you should not fire till he is just passing you) you cannot do so if he passes to your right without turning your whole body half round in that direction—­a movement which might catch the eye of the tiger.  To surmount this difficulty Sir Samuel Baker has invented a small stool with a revolving top, which is no doubt air excellent thing if there is time to erect a suitable platform on which to support the stool, but it often happens that positions have to be taken up in a hurry, and that you have to sit on the fork of a branch, or on the ground behind a bush or rock, where the tiger may pass on either side.  In such cases the shooter should sit facing nearly full face to the right, as he can, with hardly any perceptible movement of his body fire readily to his left, and he should instruct his man with the second gun to point with his finger in order to indicate the side on which the tiger is approaching.

In all the books I have read about tigers I have never met with an allusion to tigers purring like cats from satisfaction, but a brother planter informs me that he heard a wounded tiger, that had killed one of the natives who was following him up, purr for several minutes, as he described it, “like a thousand cats.”  The evening was closing in when the accident occurred and as the jungle was thick nothing could be done.  On the following morning the man and the tiger were found lying dead together.