Archive image from page 96 of The diary of a sportsman. The diary of a sportsman naturalist in India . diaryofsportsman00steb Year: 1920 IN THE BERARS—MY FIRST TIGER l had the} disappeared when a Winding shower came on, and for the time being jungle and buffalo were hidden from me. The squall was accompanied by a gusty wind, which necessitated frantic clutches at the nearest branch to prevent myself being blown down the khud below. The time crawled on with leaden wings. The weather appeared to get worse and I grew weary of abusing myself for my folly at having come out on such an afternoon. T
Archive image from page 96 of The diary of a sportsman. The diary of a sportsman naturalist in India . diaryofsportsman00steb Year: 1920 IN THE BERARS—MY FIRST TIGER l had the} disappeared when a Winding shower came on, and for the time being jungle and buffalo were hidden from me. The squall was accompanied by a gusty wind, which necessitated frantic clutches at the nearest branch to prevent myself being blown down the khud below. The time crawled on with leaden wings. The weather appeared to get worse and I grew weary of abusing myself for my folly at having come out on such an afternoon. The buffalo carcase, on which my eyes had been fixed so intently and for so long, began to assume fantastic shapes to my dazed vision and to lift the legs I had thought so stiff and stark. Suddenly, from absolute lethargy and inertness, my body assumed a tense rigidity, the tension of the muscles being almost painful, so tightly were they braced. Without a sound, without the movement of a branch or crackling of a twig, a fine tiger stepped out into the small clearing round the buffalo with all the lightness and grace of a kitten, carrying its head held high in regal fashion. One lordly glance up the track by which the carcase had been dragged down was all he vouchsafed, and then stepping half round the buffalo he picked it up in his powerful jaws as easily as a kitten would pick up a ball, of yarn, carried it just out of the clearing into the jungle alongside, and squatting down—I could guess this—began to crunch up the carcase. To describe my own feehngs were impossible. From the seventh heaven of hope and delightful anticipation of bagging my first tiger I was reduced in a moment to the black depths of despair. Do you understand what had happened ? The space cut round the dead buffalo was only just sufficient to enable me to see it clearly, and I had understood that the carcase had been tied down to stakes in the ground. It had not been so pegged, and the tiger by moving
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