“At eleven o’clock at night we entered the famous pass of Dunghye.  The road bears the appearance of a deep sandy ravine; the banks are rocky and woody, and in many places quite overhung by the forest-trees.  We had accomplished about half the defile, when I was suddenly and rudely awakened from a dozing sleep by the shock of my palankeen coming to the ground, and by the most discordant shouts and screams.  I jumped out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, and found, on inquiry, that a foraging party of tigers—­probably speculating upon picking up a straggling bearer—­had sprung off the rocks, and dashed across the road, bounding between my palankeen and that of Colonel D., who was scarcely ten yards a-head.  The bearers of both palankeens were all huddled together, bellowing like bedlamites, and the mussalgees waving their torches most vehemently.  On mustering our forces, we discovered that two of our patarra-bearers were missing, and fearing that the tigers might pick them up, we dispatched four men with spare torches to bring them on.  Meanwhile my friend and myself, having brought our palankeens together, armed ourselves with patience and a pair of pistols to await the result.  The whole incident, with the time and scene, was highly interesting and wild, with just enough of the awful to give an additional piquancy.  The night was dark and stormy, and the wind roared among the trees above our heads:  the torches cast a red and flickering light on the rocks in our immediate neighbourhood, and just showed us enough of the depths of the forest to make the back ground more gloomy and unfathomable.  The distant halloos of the men who were gone in search of their comrades, came faintly and wildly upon the breeze; and the occasional shots that we fired rang through the rocky jungle with an almost interminable echo.  In about three quarters of an hour our bearers joined us, together with the two patarra-bearers.  These latter, hearing the vociferations of our men, and guessing the cause, had quietly placed their boxes on the ground, about a mile in the rear of us, and seating themselves on their heels, had determined not to proceed until the break of day.

“All being reported present, we resumed our journey, the men screaming chorus to scare our unwelcome visitors, whom I several times fancied I heard rustling among the brushwood on the road side, as though they were moving on our flanks in order to cut off any straggler who might drop astern.  I never saw bearers go more expeditiously, or in more compact order, every man fearing to be the last in the cavalcade.[1] A sheet would have covered the whole party!  The tigers, if they had calculated upon one of our number for their evening meal, must have gone supperless to their lair, for we mustered all our twenty-four men in the morning.  A dak hurkarah (post messenger) had been carried off in the same spot two days before, probably by the same family of tigers, which according to the bearer’s account, consisted of two old ones, and three cubs.