to keep up his strength. This, however, he refused to take, unless the head man of his village, who happened to be present, would consent. The head man, evidently wishing to shirk the responsibility, shook his head doubtfully; but the members of his caste all called out--"It's no matter; let him drink;" and he drank accordingly. While this was going on, I had a rough stretcher made, and, doing up his wounds as well as we could, sent him off on the way to his village. While we were attending to the wounded man, rather an amusing incident occurred. It appears that when the tiger charged, one of the party, a toddy-drawer, at once climbed up a tree, and when the party retreated, carrying off the wounded, he was afraid to come down. His absence had not been remarked, and when we were engaged in doing up the wounded man, the toddyman, who had taken heart and come down, slunk quietly out of the jungle, and startled some of the party not a little, as they thought that it was perhaps the tiger coming down on them again. However, this toddyman reported that the tiger was still almost in the same spot where he had been lying when he made his attack: and I then proposed we should go into the jungle, and see how we liked the look of him. But the tiger had given such indications of temper that the main body of the people seemed to have no desire to see him again, and I think that only ten (and those mostly my own people) accompanied me. As I was, Europeanly speaking, single-handed, this may have seemed an imprudent course, and no doubt it was not altogether unattended with danger; but it luckily turned out that the tiger was stone dead, though he was lying in such a natural position that we had some doubts as to whether he might not be shamming, even when we got within fifteen yards of him. As we were skinning the tiger, the wounded man (who had by that time only been carried a few hundred yards) expired: so, observing that it was "written on his forehead,"[45] we took up our man and our skin, and went home. These instances of infringement of caste rules will show the reader the way in which they are sometimes abandoned; and I could mention other minor points where I have seen them occasionally abandoned. But not only are these rules thus, on urgent occasions, summarily set aside, but within a very short distance I have observed an alteration of custom. For instance, on our side of the river which separates our county from the next, neither the farmers nor the toddy-drawers will eat of an animal that has even been touched after death by a Pariah; whereas, on the other side of the river, the Pariahs who came out shooting not only touched, but carried a couple of wild boars we had killed. And yet the people on one side of the river are exactly of the same caste as those on the other. But the fact seems to be, that many of the minor points of what is called caste law have arisen from some accident, and in the course of time have hardened into local customs.