AMUSING STORIES.

DESCRIPTION OF A TIGER HUNT IN INDIA.

THE royal tiger is considered as one of the most beautiful amongst quadrupeds; but, as if to show us the error of prizing a beautiful appearance when it is not recommended by a good disposition, it is, at the same time, the most cruel, destructive, and rapacious animal in the creation.

In India, where it grows to a very large size, it often does considerable mischief, carrying off cattle, and lying in wait near the public roads to seize upon the unwary traveller. Whenever, therefore, this common enemy is discovered near a populous village, every person in the country prepares to follow him into his haunts; and, though the chase is attended with much danger, it is very seldom that he escapes from his pursuers. With great people tiger-hunting is a favourite amusement; and they will often take the field against these animals, mounted on elephants, and attended by considerable bodies of armed men.

The following letter was written by an English gentleman to Sir William Jones; and it cannot fail to interest, from the lively manner in which the hunt is described. It is stated to have taken place upon the banks of the Ganges, in Bengal, in the year 1784::

"As you could not partake of the pleasure of the hunt, from which I am just returned, I snatch my pen to give you the following hasty description of the business of the day.

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Matters had been thus judiciously arranged; tents were sent off yesterday, and an encampment formed within a mile and a half of the jungle which was to be the scene of our operations; and in this jungle the thickets of long rank grass and reeds are, in many places, fifteen feet high. At one o'clock this morning thirty elephants, with the servants, and refreshments of all kinds, were dispatched; at two we all followed in fly-palanquins; at a quarter after four we reached the encampment, and, having rested near two hours, we mounted our elephants, and proceeded to the jungle.

"In our way we met with game of all kindshares, antelopes, hog-deer, wild boars, and wild buffaloes; but nothing could divert our attention from the fiercer animals of the forest.

"At the gray of the dawn we formed a line of great extent, and entered a small detached jungle. My elephant (sorely against my wish, but there was no remedy, for my driver was a keen sportsman, and he and I spoke no common language) passed

through the centre, but happily no tiger had at that hour nestled there. I saw, however, as I passed through it, the bed of one, in which there was a half-devoured bullock, with a heap of bones, some bleached, and some still red with gore.

"We had not proceeded five hundred yards beyond the jungle when we heard a general cry on our left of Baugh, Baugh, Baugh! On hearing this exclamation of Tiger! we wheeled, and, forming the line anew, entered the great jungle, when the spot where a single tiger lay having been pointed out, on the discharge of the first gun a scene presented itself, confessed by all the experienced tiger hunters present to be the finest they had ever seen. Five full-grown royal tigers sprang at the same instant from the spot where they had been crouching together. They ran different ways; but running heavily, they all crouched again in new covers within the same jungle, and all were marked. We followed, having formed the line into a crescent, so as to embrace either extremity of the jungle in the centre were the houdah (or state) elephants, with the ladies, and the marksmen, to comfort and encourage them.

"The gentlemen of the party had each an elephant to himself. When we had slowly and warily approached the spot where the first tiger lay, he moved not until we were just upon him; when, with a roar that resembled thunder, he rushed upon us. The elephants wheeled round at once; and (for as it is not to be described by any quadruped motion we know, I must therefore

coin a term for the occasion) 'shuffled' off. They returned, however, after a flight of about fifty yards; and again approaching the spot where the tiger had lodged himself towards the skirts of the jungle, he once more rushed forth, and, springing at the side of an elephant upon which three of the natives were mounted, at one stroke of his paw tore a portion of the pad from under them; and one of the riders, panic-struck, fell off. The tiger, however, seeing his enemies in force, returned, slow and indignant, into his shelter, where (the place he lay in being marked) a heavy and well-directed fire was poured in by the principal marksmen; when, pushing in, we saw him in the struggle of death, and, growling and foaming, he expired.

"We then proceeded to seek the others, having first distinguished the spot by pitching a tall spear, and tying to the end of it the muslin of a turban. We roused the other three in close succession, and, with little variation of circumstances, killed them all. The oldest and most ferocious of the family had, however, early in the conflict, very sensibly quitted the scene of action, and escaped to another part of the country.

"While the fate of the last and largest was depending, more shots were fired than in the three other attacks. He escaped four several assaults; and, taking post in different parts of the jungle, rushed upon us at each wound he received with rekindled rage, and as often put the whole line to flight. In his last pursuit he singled out the ele