Tigers are not at all afraid of water, and are fast and powerful swimmers.  They swim much after the fashion of a horse, only the head out of the water, and they make scarcely any ripple.

‘In another case,’ writes George, ’though not five yards from the elephant, and right under me, a tiger was swimming with so slight a ripple that I mistook it for a rat, until I saw the stripes emerge, when I perforated his jacket with a bullet.’

Only their head remaining out of water when they are swimming, they are very hard to hit, as shooting at an object on water is very deceptive work as to judging distance, and a tiger’s head is but a small object to aim at when some little way off.

Old C. had another adventure with a cunning rogue, which all but ended disastrously.  He was in hot pursuit of the tiger, and, finding no safety on land, it took to swimming in a broad unfordable piece of water, a sort of deep lagoon.  Old C. procured a boat that was handy, and got a coolie to paddle him out after the tiger.  He fired several shots at the exposed head of the brute, but missed.  He thought he would wait till he got nearer and make a sure shot, as he had only one bullet left in the boat.  Suddenly the tiger turned round, and made straight for the boat.  Here was a quandary.  Even if lie killed the tiger with his single bullet it might upset the boat; the lagoon was full of alligators, to say nothing of weeds, and there was no time to get his heavy boots off.  He felt his life might depend on the accuracy of his aim.  He fired, and killed the tiger stone dead within four or five yards of the boat.

On one occasion, when out with our worthy district magistrate, Mr. S., I came on the tracks of what to all appearance, was a very large tiger.  They led over the sand close to the water’s edge, and were very distinct.  I could see no returning marks, so I judged that the tiger must have taken to the water.  The stream was rapid and deep, and midway to the further bank was a big, oblong-shaped, sandy islet, some five or six hundred yards long, and having a few scrubby bushes growing sparsely on it.  We put our elephants into the rapid current, and got across.  The river here was nearly a quarter of a mile wide on each side of the islet.  As we emerged from the stream on to the island we found fresh tracks of the tiger.  They led us completely round the circumference of the islet.  The tiger had evidently been in quest of food.  The prints were fresh and very well defined.  Finding that all was barren on the sandy shore, he entered the current again, and following up we found his imprint once more on the further bank, several hundred yards down the stream.