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advise on the terrain and the direction the beaters should
What y
What you Think?ou Think? take once a tiger had been spotted.
Why did Grandfather The camp itself was sumptuous – seven large tents (one
accompany the party? for each shikari), a dining-tent, and a number of servants’
tents. The dinner was very good, as Grandfather admitted
afterwards; it was not often that one saw hot-water plates,
finger-glasses, and seven or eight courses, in a tent in the
jungle! But that was how things were done in the days of the Viceroys. There were
also some fifteen elephants, four of them with howdahs for the shikaris, and the others
especially trained for taking part in the beat.
The sportsmen never saw a tiger, nor did they shoot anything else, though they saw
a number of deer, peacock, and wild boar. They were giving up all hope of finding a
tiger, and were beginning to shoot at jackals, when Grandfather, strolling down the forest
path at some distance from the rest of the party, discovered a little tiger about eighteen
inches long, hiding among the intricate roots of a Banyan tree. Grandfather picked him
up, and brought him home after the camp had broken up. He had the distinction of
being the only member of the party to have bagged any game, dead or alive.
At first the tiger-cub, who was named Timothy by
Grandmother, was brought up entirely on milk given to
What you Think?ou Think?
him in a feeding bottle by our cook, Mahmud. But the milk What y
proved too rich for him, and he was put on a diet of raw Where did the
mutton and cod liver oil, to be followed later by a more Grandfather find the
tempting diet of pigeons and rabbits. tiger?
Timothy was provided with two companions – Toto, the
monkey, who was bold enough to pull the young tiger by the tail, and then climb up
the curtains if Timothy lost his temper; and a small mongrel puppy, found on the road
by Grandfather.
At first, Timothy appeared to be quite afraid of the puppy,
make absurd dashes at it with his large forepaws, and then What you Think?ou Think?
What y
and darted back with a spring if it came too near. He would
retreat to a ridiculously safe distance. Finally, he allowed Explain-absurd dashes.
the puppy to crawl on his back and rest there.
One of Timothy’s favourite amusements was to stalk anyone
who would play with him, and so, when I came to live with Grandfather, I became one
of the tiger’s favourites. With a crafty look in his glittering eyes, and his body crouching,
he would creep closer and closer to me, suddenly making a dash for my feet, rolling
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The English Carnival-6

