Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/230

 word “caravansary” or “caravan-serai,” The keepers of thess placas supply water, provender and food, and at night the serais along the rosd are aglow with the cooking fires, and resound with the chattering and tsughter cf thousands of natives, The vil- isger, or serats,are about three milea apart, and between them you never see a human babliation. Although the north western provincea are tha most densely populated eouatry ta the world, the fickale and wild cattle yoam over the epace between these villages, Which are fortified with walls of mud or brick, a3 freely a3 if it were.an wa: trodden wilderness.

This ia whut makes India, dezpite ite teem: ing population of two hundred millions, ec enbjoct to tha depredations of wild beasts. The Hindoca sre not a reco ef Nimrods. ‘hey are psturally timid, and their religion makes them averse to taking life, even of a beast of prey. The government pays 2 re- ward of fifty ropees for every tiger killed, and fer leopards, hyenas and wolves, snis3 that represent weeks of labor toa native; yet thess ‘‘varmints” are nearly sll killed by Ruropeans, avd in the war beiween the whita man ard the jungle owners, it is doubtful which party sre sbcad. In some interlor districts a pair of man-eating tigers have been known to eject the people of a whole villsge sud grimly hold it so long as they liked the lodgings. In other placea the road is deserted because a tiger has pos: serio.

The term man-eater is applied to a tiger that has once tasted human blood. From that time he becomes a cannibal, and don- bly Gangerous and gavage. Nolouger satis: fied with his fermer food, he prowls singly ox in pairs around the outskirts of a village, watching bis opportuniby to gobble upgome unfortunate native.

The premium paid for a cobras head is three annas (ten cents), and the retitrn of the number annuaily killed ig ouly sbout 20,000, while it is estimated that full that Humber of mes, Women and children dio every year in Indis from the bites of cibras and other venomous snakes, This country is the paradise of snakes, for here they sre not enly feared but worshipped. Soma- times s cobrs will fake up ite abode ia the thatched roof or undsy the mud walls ofa native house, but the Hindoo will not kiil it; he sends for a snake-charmer to come and play to it upon a reed or gourd, and respectfully ask it to go elsewhere. All this is