help repetition in enforcing this principle: there is a minimum amount of striking energy in a light hollow projectile, and a maximum amount in a solid heavy projectile; keep the latter within the animal to ensure the effect of the blow; this will be effected by a bullet made of pure lead without admixture with other metal, to flatten upon impact, and by the expansion of surface it will create a terrific wound; at the same time it will have sufficient momentum from its great weight to push forward, and to overcome the resistance of opposing bones and muscles. A very large tiger may weigh 450 lbs.; a '577 bullet of 650 grains, propelled by 6 drams of powder, has a striking energy of 3520 foot-pounds. This may be only theoretical measurement, but the approximate superiority of 3500 lbs. against the tiger's weight, 450 lbs., would be sufficient to ensure the stoppage of a charge, or the collapse of the animal in any position, provided that the bullet should be retained within the body, and thus bestow the whole force of the striking energy. We did all that could be done for our wounded men. The strength of caste prejudices was so potent that, although in pangs of thirst from pain and general shock to the system, they would accept nothing from our hands. I made a mixture of milk with soda-water, brandy, and laudanum, but they refused to swallow it, and the only course, after washing their wounds and bandaging, was to leave them to the treatment of their own people. One man was severely bitten through the chest and back, the fangs of the tiger having penetrated the lungs; he was also clawed in a terrible manner about the head and face, where the paws of the animal had first made fast their hold. This man died in a few hours. The others were bitten through the shoulder and upper portion of the arm, both in the same manner, and the sharp claws had cut through the scalp from the forehead across the head to the back of the neck, inflicting clean wounds to the bone, as though produced by a pruning-knife. They were conveyed in litters to the hospital in Moorwarra, where they remained for nearly a month, at the expiration of which they recovered. The seizure by the claws was effected without the shock of a blow. This serious accident was entirely due to a hollow bullet: if a solid bullet had struck a tiger in the same place it would have carried away a portion of the spine, and the animal would have been paralysed upon the spot. In the absence of a dependable elephant we should have been helpless, and the tiger might have wounded or killed many others. CHAPTER VII THE TIGER (CONTINUED)