They are not always to be treated lightly, for in 1882 jackals killed 359 men in Bengal alone. Especially are they a terrible danger when hydrophobia rages among them, as the experiences of the last Boundary Commission in Seistan showed. A mad jackal sneaked into the camp one night and bit a sleeping man in the face. Within six weeks the man was dead. Others stole into the natives' huts and lay in ambush, waiting for an opportunity to bite. Perhaps the worst incident occurred on a dark winter's night, when a north wind was raging and sweeping the dust along the ground. A mad jackal came into the Englishmen's camp and crept into a tent where several men were sleeping. Fortunately he only set his teeth in a felt rug. This wakened the sleepers, however, and they at once started up and looked for weapons. The camp consisted of three sections, and more than a hundred tethered camels. In the pitchy darkness it was impossible to see where the jackal went, but the camels could be heard shrieking with fear, and thus it was only too clear where the brute was. When day broke seventy-eight bitten dromedaries were counted. They were isolated from the others, and killed as soon as they showed signs of sickness, while the dogs and goats which had been bitten by the jackal were shot at once. Twenty years ago I myself had a little adventure with jackals. I was riding with a couple of servants and some horses to the Caspian shore from the interior of Persia, and encamped one evening at a village in the Elburz Mountains. The caravanserai was notorious for its vermin, so I preferred to make myself comfortable in a garden with fruit trees and poplars, protected by a wall five feet high and without any gates. We had to climb over the wall in order to get in. I had a saddle for a pillow and lay wrapped in a felt rug and a cloak. The remains of my supper, bread, honey, and apples, stood on my two small leather trunks. When it grew dark my men went off to the village and I rolled myself up and went to sleep.