I have only been out after tiger on foot on one occasion.  It was in the sal jungles in Oudh.  A neighbour of mine, a most intimate and dear friend, whom I had nicknamed the ‘General,’ and a young friend, Fullerton, were with me.  A tigress and cub were reported to be in a dense patch of nurkool jungle, on the banks of the creek which divided the General’s cultivation from mine.  The nurkool is a tall feathery-looking cane, very much relished by elephants.  It grows in dense brakes, and generally in damp boggy ground, affording complete shade and shelter for wild animals, and is a favourite haunt of pig, wolf, tiger, and buffalo.

We had only one elephant, the use of which Fullerton had got from a neighbouring Baboo.  It was not a staunch animal, so we put one of our men in the howdah, with a plentiful supply of bombs, a kind of native firework, enclosed in a clay case, which burns like a huge squib, and sets fire to the jungle.  Along with the elephant we had a line of about one hundred coolies, and several men with drums and tom-toms.  Fullerton took the side nearest the river, as it was possible the brute might sneak out that way, and make her escape along the bank.  The General’s shekarry remained behind, in rear of the line of beaters, in case the tigress might break the line, and try to escape by the rear.  My Gomasta, the General, and myself, then took up positions behind trees all along the side of the glade or dell in which was the bit of nurkool jungle.

It was a small basin, sloping gently down to the creek from the sal jungle, which grew up dark and thick all around.  A margin of close sward, as green and level as a billiard-table, encircled the glade, and in the basin the thick nurkool grew up close, dense, and high, like a rustling barrier of living green.  In the centre was the decaying stump of a mighty forest monarch, with its withered arms stretching out their bleached and shattered lengths far over the waving feathery tops of the nurkool below.

The General and I cut down, some branches, which we stuck in the ground before us.  I had a fallen log in front of me, on which I rested my guns.  I had a naked kookree ready to hand, for we were sure that the tigress was in the swamp, and I did not know what might happen.  I did not half like this style of shooting, and wished I was safely seated on the back of ‘JORROCKS,’ my faithful old Bhaugulpore elephant.  The General whistled as a sign for the beat to begin.  The coolies dashed into the thicket.  The stately elephant slowly forced his ponderous body through the crashing swaying brake.  The rattle of the tom-toms and rumble of the drums, mingled with the hoarse shouts and cries of the beaters, the fiery rush of sputtering flame, and the loud report as each bomb burst, with the huge volumes of blinding smoke, and the scent of gunpowder that came on the breeze, told us that the bombs were doing their work.  The jungle was too green to burn; but the fireworks raised a dense sulphurous smoke, which penetrated among the tall stems of the nurkool, and by the waving and crashing of the tall swaying canes, the heaving of the howdah, with the red puggree of the peon, and the gleaming of the staves and weapons, we could see that the beat was advancing.