which had a drop of eight feet on the lower side, and where it was assumed by all of us as certain that the tiger would pass lower down the hill, it came on the upper side, on rather higher ground than the cleft I was sitting on, and so close that I could have touched it with a spear, and had I not fatally crippled it at the first shot, it might easily have jumped on to me.  But I entirely agree with Colonel Peyton that it is always best for several reasons to get into a tree, even though it may not be a high one, or indeed into a scrubby tree so low that your feet are only some five feet from the ground.  In the first place, you can command a wider view, then you are concealed, and can let the tiger pass your line, and as the tiger could pass under your feet you are not in his way, and there would be little chance, if you reserved your fire till he had passed, in his either attacking you or being driven back on the beaters.  Colonel Peyton, whom I quote with great confidence, is in favour of a bamboo ladder with broad rungs to sit on, and which will enable you to have your feet eleven feet from the ground.  To illustrate the risk of sitting on the ground, I may mention the following incident: 

Many years ago news was brought that a tiger had killed cattle some six or seven miles off.  The distance was considerable, the news came late, and it was, I think, about three in the afternoon when I reached the spot.  The beaters were all ready and impatient, no doubt, owing to being kept waiting so long, and as I did not wish to delay them, and had no ladder, and there was no suitable tree, I took a seat on the ground behind a bush which lay on one side of, and about twenty yards from, a depression in the land through the bottom of which, by all the laws of tigers, the tiger ought to have passed to the main forest beyond.  I had no sooner seated myself than I saw, from the lay of the ground, that if the tiger should happen to break at a point in a line with my bush he would probably gallop on to the top of me before it would be possible to make more than a snap shot.  I at once left the spot and climbed a small tree on the opposite side of the depression, and this enabled me to have my feet some five feet from the ground.  Presently the beat began, and with a roar, and an evident determination to charge anything in his way, a very large tiger broke cover at full speed and went exactly over the very spot of ground I had been sitting on.  At the pace he was coming at I do not indeed think he could have stopped himself, and I hardly think I should have had time to fire, and I have often wondered what would have happened had he galloped on to myself and my man.  However, as it was, I was all right, fired just as he passed the bush and knocked him over with one shot, and put another into him as he got half up and struggled into the jungle, apparently with his back broken, and lay down about a few yards aside of it.  And now by a curious coincidence we just missed what must have been a very serious accident, and this is well worth mentioning, as it confirms what another writer has said as to the care that should be used in approaching a tiger supposed to be dead.