‘Hullo! what’s the matter now?’ said I to Debnarain.

‘God only knows,’ said he.

‘A young tiger!’ ‘Bagh ka butcha!’ screams our mahout, and regardless of the elephant or of our cries to stop, he scuttled down the pad rope like a monkey down a backstay, and clutching a young dead tiger cub, threw it up to Debnarain; it was about the size of a small poodle, and had evidently been trampled by the pursuing herd of buffaloes.

‘There may be others,’ said the gomasta; and peering into every bush, we went slowly on.

The elephant now shewed decided symptoms of dislike and a reluctance to approach a particular dense clump of grass.

A sounding whack on the head, however, made her quicken her steps, and thrusting the long stalks aside, she discovered for us three blinking little cubs, brothers of the defunct, and doubtless part of the same litter.  Their eyes were scarcely open, and they lay huddled together like three enormous striped kittens, and spat at us and bristled their little moustaches much as an angry cat would do.  All the four were males.

It was not long ere I had them carefully wrapped in the mahout’s blanket.  Overjoyed at our good fortune, we left the excited buffaloes still executing their singular war-dance, and the angry tigress, robbed of her whelps, consuming her soul in baffled fury.

We heard her roaring through the night, close to camp, and on my friends’ arrival, we beat her up next morning, and she fell pierced by three bullets, after a fierce and determined charge.  We came upon her across the nullah, and her mind was evidently made up to fight.  Nearly all the villagers had turned out with the line of elephants.  Before we had time to order them away, she came down upon the line, roaring furiously, and bounding over the long grass,—­a most magnificent sight.

My first bullet took her full in the chest, and before she could make good her charge, a ball each from Pat and Captain G. settled her career.  She was beautifully striped, and rather large for a tigress, measuring nine feet three inches.

It was now a question with me, how to rear the three interesting orphans; we thought a slut from some of the villages would prove the best wet nurse, and tried accordingly to get one, but could not.  In the meantime an unhappy goat was pounced on and the three young-tigers took to her teats as if ‘to the manner born.’  The poor Nanny screamed tremendously at first sight of them, but she soon got accustomed to them, and when they grew a little bigger, she would often playfully butt at them with her horns.

The little brutes throve wonderfully, and soon developed such an appetite that I had to get no less than six goats to satisfy their constant thirst.  I kept the cubs for over two months, and I shall not soon forget the excitement I caused, when my boat stopped at Sahribgunge, and my goats, tiger cubs, and attendants, formed a procession from the ghat or landing-place, to the railway station.