The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-04-12
TIGER DRIVE IN METAL
CLOSE GORDON OF 400 ELE-
 PLANTS MPLOTED.

Line of Huts Built Purposely for the Beat-HOw the Great Ring of EIe- phants was Pressed Toward a Gen.
 traI Point-Killing and Bringing Out I the Quarry.
 Wishing to see something of lungs famous method of tiger driving, I went with three gentlemen of MT. Girdle- stones party to the neighborhood of the jungl4 which was to be beaten an hour or so before the time fixed for the Princes start from camp. Before We had gone half a mile, says a correspon- dent of the Indian Pioneer. we got a 1 glimpse of the scale on which Mahara- Jah conducts his operations.
 For the purpose of tis single beat upwards of fcrty huts had been con- structed, only of boughs and leaves it is true, but stil quite as substantial as those which the Taros in the Teral consider good enough for permanent itfNS4tN'tASti' f1 AiCSt llhho hNlC bhAAL III ct perfect straight line about twenty yards apart, this line being in fact the l chord of an arc, the arc itself formed by close corden of elephants.
 By day for several previous days these huts, open towards the arc, had been occupied by groups of soldiers and shikaries who by the noise of their chatter and the chatter of their cook ing and wood cutting quite deprived the tigers in the ofrest in front of them of any fancy for strolling that way; by night these sentfies had maintained 1 huge fires between each hut, which fires had the same result of barring the way during the dark hours In front of this lne of huts path about ten yards wide had been cleared of tim Der so as to permit the convenient ap- proach of the Princes elephants to the scene of action
 By this time the Prince and his party were beginning to arrive, so the Ma l harajah pushed forward to meet him, and we joined in behind. Now the plan of operations, which is indeed of the utmost simplicity, began to develop it. self The cordon of thirty or forty ele- plants which I formerly mentioned, and which marked one end of the arcio l seini-circle of elephants, now extended themselves In line, directly the Princes party had passed, so as to form the chord of the arc, as far as their num- Der permitted. In the meanwhile, the Prince and Maharajah, with their fol- lowres, proceeded along the line of huts until they came to the last, where was | the other extremity of the arc.
 The elephants of our party (also per- haps thirty or forty in number} were then extended backward so as to join hands with the pad elephants which had sufliced to furnish, say, half the chord, and the the ring of elephants around the doomed tiger was complete. Three elephants only were exempted from forming links in this chain, those of the Prince, the Maharajah and Gen. Probyn These were within the ring and free to go wherever desirable, all others to keep in their places in the circle so far as intervening trees would permit, and simply press convergently to the centre. Strict directions were ! given that no one under any circum- stances was to fire except the Prince. Even Jung Bahadur and Gen. Probyn would not fire unless in the case of the Princes extreme peril Then the ring Ing toward the same central point and the Prince and his two companies nov ing toward the same point, but within the ring and a litle In advance of our part of 1t, began to close in.
 There were about 400 elephants em- ployed. I should guess that at first there may have been on the average four yards between every two lephants, Allow six feet for the breadth of the elephant itself, and the circle may be roughly estimated, as a mile and a half round. Soon, however, the interval be- tween the elephants dwindled to three yeards, two yards, one yard. At last, except where the trunk of a tree inter- posed, the elephants were almost touch ing each other
 Before 1t had actually come to this a 1 largelarge herd of spotted deer, with two l fine stags among them, had shown themselves at various points of the cir- cle, seeking where to break through. At last, maddened by the shouting and crashing of branches as the elephants marched on and In utter desperation, one hind rushed between two elephants near me and the rest of the herd fol- lowed her. The passage of those timid | creatures was quite enough to show me what ticklish cattle elephants are. A number of them backed out of the line and screamed, as much as if these poor scared deer had been so many ferocious tigers; and if a tiger had talk en advantage of the momentary break in the circle he might have got off scot l free.
 The deer, however had soon all pass ed, and the ring was again continuous. At this time a shot was heard. l could not see the Prince on account of some intervening underwood but it was of course, he who had fired. Then came two shots in rapid succession, and the shouting of the mahouts redoubled; and the noise was indeed so alarming and | stupefying to the birds within the cir cle that black partridge actually flew and stunned itself against an elephants | head.
 Then came a fourth shot. Still we pressed inward Only now there was not room for all the elephants to keep I f1a TN1o lt, ba tnn