Thomas County cat., 1886-11-18
A LEOPARD HUNT.
A Thrilling Story Of the Indian
Jungles.

Julbarri. l say "good fortune" for
so considered it; but l am afraid, if
you had asked at our mess for votes as
to whether l ought to qualify the word
fortune with the adjective "good" or
"bad," l should have got very few to
vote for my word. Good fortune
considered it, nevertheless; for l was
an ardent sportsman; Julbarri was al
most untried ground; and the neigh
boring jungles abounded in game of
many kinds, among which the rhi-
noceros, the tiger and the leopard
were by no means few and far be-
tween. And yet can not deny that
for any one who was not a sportsman,
Julbarri was about as slow a station as
could be picked out in all the length
and breadth of our vast Indian empire.
1t was situated in an out-of-the-way
corner of Bengal; and there was no
large station within couple of hun
dred miles of us where man with So
cial and gregariOus tastes could 90 for a
few days to get rid of the oft-tOld tales
and well thrashed-Out politics of the
limited circle of our small mess-table.
Julbarri was, alas, single-corps sta
ton, and except civil officer or two
the whole society consisted of the gal
liant British officers of the distinguished
Seventy-siNth native infantry: a nice
set of fellows enough, l allow; but
still the best Of listeners must in time
the comparative merits of Arab and
English horses; and it is difficult to
wage any real warfare with Jones as
he challenges you for the hundreth
time to defend Lord Coughs tactics at
Chilianwalla.
AT the time of which l write our So
cietv was 1t peculiarly low ebb. The
drill season was over, the hot weather
was coming on and the leave season
had begun. There was so little work
TO be done that our Colonel had
taken pity on our isolation, and
had been unusually, perhaps almost
unauthorizedly, liberal in the mat
ter of leave; and our mess, small
enough ut its best. had dwindled and
dwindled, until now not more than
half a dozen unfOrtunates daily
stretched their legs beneath its we'll
spread mahogany. For me, the APP
preaching heat had no terrors, the
smallness of our society no ennui. and
the prospect of escape from Julbarri
no charms: for the beginning of the
hot weather is the very time when the
best shooting can be obtained, and |
had long been watching the drying up
of the grass in the jungles, and had
been looking forward to the time
when we might start a tiger with some
chance of bagging him. There was
one thing in which we were particu-
larly fortunate; we had attached to
our regiment nine elephants as part
of our regimental transport. l need
scarcely say that it was not long be-
fore we had the elephants and their
mahouts (drivers) thoroughly trained
for shooting. The largest elephants
we trained to carry our howdahs. and
the smaller we used to form a line to
beat the jungleS and drive out the
game. With these elephants we had
lots of fun, and there were few weeks
after the shooting season began in
which some of us did not 60 out two
or three times. We generally took it
in turns; four of us went out. and two
remained behind to look after the regi-
ment and the station.
We kept three or four shikarees
(native hunters), who were constantly
going about the villages and jungles
within radius of six or seven miles of
cantonments: and as soon as they
heard of tiger having killed bull
lock or any other animal, or as soon
as they discovered the fresh footmarks
of any animal worth going after. they
would come in and give the ktubber
(news); and then those whose turn it
was would send the elephants and
their arms on towards where the game
had been seen, and would follow them
selves on horseback as quickly as pos
sible. The best kind OF kAubber was
when a bullock or any other large ami
NAL had been killed. The tiger usual.
" prowls around some village or some
place where cattle is pastured and kept
for the night; and wheE he sees his op-
portunity, will spring on some unfort-
0nate animal which has got separated