THE LEOPARD. 63

went through his cheek, for it certainly did not seriously
injure him, as he instantly rose upon his legs, with a loud
roar, and placed his paws upon the soldier’s breast. At this
moment, the animal appeared to me to about reach the centre
of the man’s face; but I had scarcely time to observe this,
when the tiger, stooping his head, seized the soldier’s arm
in his mouth, turned him half round staggering, threw him
over on his back, and fell upon him. Our dread now was,
that, if we fired upon the tiger, we might killthe man. For
a moment, there was a pause, when his comrade attacked
the beast exactly in the same manner as the gallant fellow
himself had done. He struck his bayonet into his head; the
tiger rose at him—he fired; and this time the ball took effect,
and in the head. The animal staggered backwards, and we
all poured in our fire. He still kicked and writhed; when
the gentlemen with the hog-spears advanced, and fixed him,
while he was finished by some natives beating him on the
head with hedge-stakes. The brave artilleryman was, after
all, but slightly hurt: He claimed the skin, which was very
cheerfully given to him. There was, however, a cry among
the natives, that the head should be cut off: it was; and,
in so doing, the knife came directly across the bayonet. The
animal measured little less than four feet, from the root of
the tail to the muzzle. There was no tradition of a tiger
having been in Jaffna before. Indeed, this one must have
either come a distance of almost twenty miles, or have swam
across an arm of the sea nearly two miles in breadth; for
Jaffna stands on a peninsula, on which there is no jungle
of any magnitude.”

Hunters Captain Brown gives a thrilling story of an

Hunted. adventure which befell two Boers in South
Africa in 1822. They were returning from a hunting excur-
sion, when they unexpectedly fell in with a leopard in a
mountain ravine, and immediately gave chase to him. The
animal at first endeavoured to escape, by clambering up a