He addressed a word or two in Hindustanee to the mahouts, and the elephants, freed now from apprehension, shuffled onward till we came upon an open park-like space, at the end of which, on a slope, was the rajah's shooting-box. Here half a dozen more elephants were standing, with a number of well-mounted men armed with spears, shields, and tulwars, and quite a host of lightly clad Hindoos were lying about, waiting to commence their task--that of beating for game, and driving it toward where the sportsmen were stationed. Upon our appearance, the rajah came out of the large verandah in front of the house, and saluted us cordially. He was a young, active-looking man, dressed like an ordinary English sportsman bound for a day's shooting on the moors; and, after pressing us to enter the house and partake of refreshment, which we declined, he at once called up a couple of hard, muscular-looking men, gave them an order or two, and the result was that these two shouldered their long, clumsy-looking old matchlocks. They signed to the crowd of beaters, who had all sprung to their feet as the rajah came out, and marched them all off, so that they could make for the head of a valley where a tiger had had a kill, and up which valley we were to slowly progress, after taking a circuit, so as to reach its mouth about the same time as the beaters reached the head. We had a much greater distance to go than the men on foot, and after a few preliminaries, the rajah mounted to the howdah of one of the waiting elephants, followed by his chief huntsman, well provided with quite a battery of English rifles. Two or three of his officers took their places on other elephants, and the mounted men and a party of foot marched at our side, as the imposing little procession started. The rajah spoke very good English, and there were moments when I forgot his smooth oily manner and dark countenance, and could almost feel that he was some swarthy sportsman who had invited us to his place for a day's shooting. He was as eager as any of us, and, as we marched off, he told us that his shikaree had marked down two tigers of exceptional size--beasts that had done a great deal of mischief in the district; and he was confident that we should have an excellent day's sport. The sun was now tremendously powerful, but the motion of the huge beasts we rode produced a certain amount of air, and the excitement made us forget everything but the object of our visit. Our course was toward a spur of a range of hills, and on rounding this, we found ourselves at the entrance of a narrow valley, across which we were formed up, the rajah's huntsman giving us a few words of instruction as to keeping as nearly as possible in a line, and warning us to have a watchful eye upon every patch of bushes and tall, sun-dried grass.