’Do you think, Raja Sahib, that the old high priest is one of the tigers at the Katra Pass?’

’No, I do not; but I think they may be all men who have become imbued with a little too much of the high priest’s science—­when men once acquire this science they can’t help exercising it, though it be to their own ruin, and that of others.’

’But, supposing them to be ordinary tigers, what is the simple plan you propose to put a stop to their depredations, Raja Sahib?’

‘I propose’, said he, ’to have the spirits that guide them propitiated by proper prayers and offerings; for the spirit of every man or woman who has been killed by a tiger rides upon his head, or runs before him, and tells him where to go to get prey, and to avoid danger.  Get some of the Gonds, or wild people from the jungles, who are well skilled in these matters—­give them ten or twenty rupees, and bid them go and raise a small shrine, and there sacrifice to these spirits.  The Gonds will tell them that they shall on this shrine have regular worship, and good sacrifices of fowls, goats, and pigs, every year at least, if they will but relinquish their offices with the tigers and be quiet.  If this is done, I pledge myself’, said the Raja, ’that the tigers will soon get killed themselves, or cease from killing men.  If they do not, you may be quite sure that they are not ordinary tigers, but men turned into tigers, or that the Gonds have appropriated all you gave them to their own use, instead of applying it to conciliate the spirits of the unfortunate people.’[8]

Notes: 

1.  Deori, in the Sagar district, about forty miles south-east of Sagar.  In 1767, the town and attached tract called the Panj Mahal were bestowed by the Peshwa, rent-free, on Dhondo Dattatraya, a Maratha pundit, ancestor of the author’s friend.  The Panj Mahal was finally made part of British territory by the treaty with Sindhia in 1860, and constitutes the District called Panch Mahals in the Northern Division of the Bombay Presidency.  The vernacular word panch like the Persian panj, means ‘five’.  The title Sarimant appears to be a popular pronunciation of the Sanskrit srimant or sriman, ‘fortunate’, and is still used by Maratha nobles.

2. Ante, Chapter 16, note 6.  The name is here erroneously printed ‘Dhamoree’ in the author’s text.

3.  He had good reason for his gratitude, inasmuch as the depression in rents was merely temporary.

4.  An Indian chief is generally accompanied into the room by a confidential follower, who frequently relieves his master of the trouble of talking, and answers on his behalf all questions.

5.  When Agrippina, in her rage with her son Nero, threatens to take her stepson, Britannicus, to the camp of the Legion, and there assert his right to the throne, she invokes the spirit of his father, whom she had poisoned, and the manes of the Silani, whom she had murdered.  ’Simul attendere manus, aggerere probra; consecratum Claudium, infernos Silanorum manes invocare, et tot invita fari nova.’- (Tacitus, lib, xviii, sec. 14.) [W.  H. S.] The quotation is from the Annals.  Another reading of the concluding words is ’et tot irrita facinora’, which gives much better sense.  In the author’s text ‘aggerere’ is printed ‘aggere’.