W. O. has killed his seventeenth tiger. I had a letter from him to-day. They had been after a great _man-eater_, who has carried off seven or eight people lately, and the Thanadars of the villages around had begged them to try and kill it. They took with them a Mr. P., an engineer they found making a bridge, who had never been out hunting before; and lent him an elephant and two guns. The first day they saw the tiger at a great distance, and Mr. A. and W. took care not to fire for fear of losing his track, but they 'presently heard a tremendous shouting, and bang, bang, with both guns. This was P. at least half a mile off, and on his coming up, he said he had seen the tiger in the distance, and it was "dreadfully exciting work." The next thing we heard of the tiger was upon my elephant's head, but he was shaken off directly, and after two or three charges, killed. About five minutes after he was dead, up comes Mr. P. in an awful state of excitement, with a small umbrella neatly folded up in his hands, and carried like a gun. "Am I too late? Is he dead?" "Yes, but where are your guns?" "Good heavens! I thought this was them. I must have thrown them away in my excitement and taken this instead." And so he had--and both A.'s and my guns which we had lent him were found in the jungles, after some trouble.' Sunday, April 7. W. and Mr. A. have at last killed another dreadful tiger, or rather tigress, which they have hunted for and given up several times. She has carried off twenty-two men in six weeks, and while they were at the village, took away the brother of the chief man of the place; took him out of his little native carriage, leaving the bullocks untouched. They found her lair, and W. says they saw a _leg_ and quantities of human hair and bones lying about it, and they saw her two cubs, but the swamps prevented the elephants going near, and the mahouts would not go, so they gave it up. But the next day she carried away a boy, and the villagers implored them to try again. They came to the remains of the boy, and at last found the tigress, and brought her out by killing one of her cubs, and then shot her--but the horrid part of the story is that the screams of the boy who was carried off were heard for about an hour, and it is supposed she gave him to her cubs to play with. Such a terrible death! Altogether, W. and Mr. A. (to say nothing of P. and his umbrella) have killed twenty-six tigers--twenty large ones, and six cubs--which is a great blessing for the country they are in. CHAPTER XXXVII. Thursday, April 11, 1839. We had Mrs. A., Mrs. L., and Mrs. R. to dinner yesterday, as we find it the best way to dine the most companionable ladies _en famille_ when we can furnish gentlemen enough of our own to hand them in to dinner.