Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/480

420 saljee brandished his torch, and joined his cries to those of the bandy-driver, to fright from our path the tigers who roam in these deserted lands. These fearful beasts are not so much dreaded in the dense jungle as in the waste places near to human dwellings. There the denizens of the forest furnish him his food; but here, tempted by hunger to attack man, he ceases to dread him, and prowls about his path and house, ready for the deadly spring upon his victim. Many a poor boy has been borne away in the jaws of the tiger while tending his cattle; and many a villager trembles and starts with hair on end at the thought of the "man-eater" as he returns at dusk from his work, or stoops to draw water from the stream. The successful tiger-hunt of the English officer, while it gives most exciting amusement to the sportsman, takes from the minds of the poor villagers an ever-present and oppressive terror.

Noon of the following day found us looking down from the brow of a hill upon Seringapatam, the far-famed citadel and metropolis of Hyder Ali and his son. Seated upon an island formed by the division of the stream of the Cavery, in the midst of a fertile plain watered by canals leading from the river to its many