How Yule succeeded in this great work-how, with infinite mercy to the poor misguided Santhals, he built up for their country an admirable form of civil government-need not here be recorded. From that time he was appreciated at something like his real value to the State; promotion and honours came to him in abundance. But no elevation or distinction could alter the man, and Yule remained to the end the same simple-minded, true-hearted creature that he was as a Bengal magistrate. Truthfulness, courage, and a rare generosity were his chief characteristics. Of him as of another George (Washington) it can be said, "He never told a lie." It was by the barest chance that Yule had survived to be the reformer and ruler of the Santhal districts. It is impossible to conceive a narrower escape from 'death than his in an encounter he had with a tiger. He was standing outside the jungle from which a tiger was being driven by beaters the tiger emerged, not at the point where Yule expected, but within a few feet of the spot where he stood. There was a rush. Yule had time only to bring his rifle up to his hip and fire as the tiger sprang upon him: he was borne down upon the ground by the tiger's weight, and by blows of the brute's paws that smashed in his sola topee and cruelly tore his shoulder and chest. It seemed for Yule that the end had come, but the tiger was dead when it reached the ground-killed instantaneously by that one chance shot. When, as a fever-stricken wreck, I went to his house at Bhagulpore, as to an asylum open to all who needed aid or solicitude, Yule was still the keen and active sportsman, even though administrative duties and responsibilities absorbed much of his time and attention. He had a stud of a dozen first-class walers-mostly tried pig-stickers—and ten magnificent elephants, staunch as any, which, when he left Oudh in 1864 to fill the position of Resident at Hyderabad, were sold at prices averaging, I think, Rs. 10,000 each. Very soon after this I had a few days' sport with Yule and others in the grass country on the right bank of the Ganges, and shot my first tiger. I am constrained to admit that, when this beast broke in front of the elephant I rode, and gave me an easy shot, my success was tinged with disappointment. Exciting enough was the hunt when the tiger was afoot in front of our small line of elephants, and still unseen; but when it dragged itself into an open patch out of a swamp, a sneaking fugitive, voiceless and drowned-cat-like, and yielded up its life without a show of fight, or even a roar of protest, it struck me as being a poor creature by comparison with the noble beast of my day-dreams. Indeed I think I took more satisfaction during that expedition out of a tiger -a dry and noble-looking animal, whose appear ever. ance sadly belied its sneaking proclivities-that we mysteriously lost in a small stretch of cover surrounded by open country and melon patches. That tiger broke fairly in front of one of our party, who, for some inscrutable reason, did not fire at it; then was lost in the long grass, and lost to us for For though we beat the cover backwards and forwards over and over again-though the tiger must have been seen if it had taken to the open we never saw it again, or saw even the peculiar waving of the grass that indicates a tiger's progress. Twice only in my long experience and intimate association with him did I see Yule show the slightest sign of temper, and this was one of those occasions. But one would do injustice to the species as a whole if one judged of all tigers by those two. A magnificent animal is the large male tiger when, with head erect and noble mien, he walks the glade or forest where he is king; or when, undaunted by the serried ranks of foes, he charges down upon a line of elephants. Grand, too, is the tigress fighting for her cubs. Unfortunately, all tigers are not animated by this bolder spirit, and not a few persist in the attempt to fly until they are rolled over as tamely as if they were rabbits. I have shot some half-dozen tigers without seeing a hair of them until they were stretched out dead or dying on the ground-shot them as they went through the reeds or grass that covered them and yet betrayed. And it is something strange that, after a little experience, one comes to judge with absolute accuracy whether the grass or reeds wave for a tiger, or for deer or pig. 106 CHAPTER V. THE SANTHAL COUNTRY IN THE MUTINY. WITH THE PURNEAH EXPEDITION HEADING THE MUTINEERS-THE FANTRY GREGOR GRANT-BREAKING THE N 1857 the Indian Mutiny occurred, and this was the final cause of my introduction to wholesale big - game shooting. big-game The district officer of Deoghur (in the Santhal Pergunnahs) was one of the many European victims of that terrible outbreak, and I was appointed his suc cessor. But before I went to my civil duties, and the tigers, panthers, bears, &c., that awaited me in the Deoghur country, I accompanied Yule's military expedition into the |