regular beat of a tiger, probably the one of which Easton had heard the stories that had led to our expedition. Pugs old and recent formed many definite well-trodden paths, one of which ran within a few yards of the bamboo-cutters' hut, though concealed by jungle. He was certainly not far off now, and we congratulated ourselves on our luck in finding him at home.

Returning to camp we find every one hard at work on the construction of a "lean-to" of bamboos and grass, under whose shelter our followers intend to pass the night.

Evening is closing in, and we must delay the arrangement of a plan of campaign until to-morrow, when we can examine the locality. The difficulty of river-transport forbade our bringing cows, and no one could be found willing to seek a path through. the jungle by which they might be driven in this direction. Goats are a poor substitute for the larger cattle, as we must sit over them all night, for a tiger would carry off such a mere mouthful as soon as he had killed it. A cow might be left secured in a suitable spot and watched after it was killed, for the tiger would take a bite or two from the throat and leave the carcase until the following day, when he might be expected to return late in the afternoon to his meal. Apparently the tiger rarely kills during the broad daylight, and as seldom eats at night; but I express this opinion with diffidence, as my limited knowledge of the species is confined to purely "game" tigers, who exist solely on deer, &c., and never tax the village cattle-pens for their meat.

There is much difficulty as to the disposal of the goats to-night with "Stripes "in the immediate neighbourhood, and our decision to tether them near the "lean-to" is productive of a good deal of grumbling. Tie up goats close beside poor naked boatmen ! Why they will cry all night and when the tiger comes it will certainly take a man instead: not a doubt of it! Near the tent now, would be a much

safer place. them that there is no danger (for there really is none), and finally after lighting large fires at four different points round the lean-to, the occupants consent to picket the goats to stakes near it.

However we persuade

The morning breaks cold and misty. Surrounded as we are by mountains the sun cannot fall on our encampment until late; but we were awakened early by the weird howling of the gibbon monkeys which were numerous, though invisible, on the hills across the river. We are soon dressed, and drinking our coffee by the fire round which the men are congregated shivering, with their blankets over their heads.

A tour of inspection is necessary before we can make our arrangements; and previous to starting I recall a hint given me by a well-known shikari in India and make up a bundle of clothes

shirt, trousers, and thick coat-in a towel and give it to my servant, Moung Tso, to bury till evening. The earthy smell thus acquired by the clothes renders the presence of humanity less likely to be detected by the tiger.

To find trees adapted for machans is our first care, and in such extensive cover the only difficulty is to make a choice. However we soon satisfy ourselves, and after setting some of the men to work, go back to camp and breakfast.

The mist has cleared away and the sun is growing hot: the heat and the glare from the white sand drive Easton into the tent, where he lies smoking until sleep overtakes him.

It would never do to disturb the jungle by shooting to-day, so I called the young Burman, who owned the decoy-cock, and told him we would go and catch jungle-fowl. Proud of the invita tion, he armed himself with a bundle of nooses, and taking the decoy carefully under his arm, led the way across the sand into the shade of the bamboo

jungle through which he noiselessly and swiftly threaded his way. Presently the crow of a jungle - cock

snares.

in the distance brought him to a standstill, and clearing the dead leaves from a space about eight feet in diameter, he drove the peg, to which the decoy was attached by the leg, into the ground and set about placing the Each of these consisted to a piece of wood six inches long, to which an elastic slip of bamboo was neatly spliced. To the tip of the bamboo a plaited horse-hair slip-knot was bound, -the snare, when stuck into the earth, being more than sufficient to withstand the wildest struggles of a jungle fowl. A couple of dozen such nooses were driven in at intervals to completely surround the decoy, but well out of his reach as he strutted round and round his peg scratching amongst the roots and pluming himself.

We retired behind a clump of bushes and sat down to await victims. A loud crow from the decoy was soon answered by one from a cock some way off. Our bird on hearing it stood more upright and seemed to listen for a few seconds before responding, which he did loudly and defiantly. Again the unseen jungle cock crowed it was evidently approaching the decoy whose excitement was manifest. He tugged at the cord, flapping his wings and calling angrily as he tried to free his leg. As the stranger drew near the interchange of crows became less vigorous, and at last he alighted on the ground with a flutter outside the ring of nooses which were almost invisible from our ambush. With ruffled feathers and outstretched head he manœuvred round the decoy which stood impatiently awaiting his attack. With a shrill cry he came on, straight at the foe, thirsting for battle. Alas for his hopes! A noose tightens round his leg, and bending double with the strain the springy bamboo converts his charge into an ignominious sprawl and whips him back a foot with outspread wings. Plucky little chap, he is up again and with a shake of his firmly entangled leg makes another charge at the excited decoy with the same result. The boy beside me, who

has been watching the proceedings with open-mouthed interest, does not seem in a hurry to complete the capture, but after a poke or two from my stick springs up and seizes the snared cock just as he succumbs to his fourth rush. Fighting his human foe gamely with beak and spurs he is deposited in a bag his captor carries, where he soon gives up struggling and lies motionless.

a

The common jungle-cock is one of the handsomest birds in India. Resembling a large bantam in shape, with bold upright carriage, splendidly varied plumage and long spurs, he looks a game-cock all over : determined fighter, he does not know when he is beaten, and I have seen a bird too exhausted to use his spurs seize his opponent by the hackle and cling to it with the tenacity of a bulldog. The Burman enjoys few sports more than this; and in many districts seven paddy-boats out of ten may be seen with the owner's bird on board tied by the leg, for a bout of fighting, if opportunity occurs.

This, however, is not the place to dilate upon the pleasures and excitements of cock-fighting, so we will return to the camp where, having finished dinner, I called on Moung Tso to produce the clothes I had given him in the morning. He received the order and started as if to carry it out, but stopped suddenly with a bewildered look round him. Taking a large splinter of bamboo he knelt down and began to grub, in a speculative uncertain way, in the sand behind the tent: he dug out a few handfuls and paused, rose from his knees, and looking doubtfully about, selected a spot a few paces further on and began another hole. This attempt also proved futile, and Moung Tso, dropping his bamboo, thought hard for at least three minutes without moving. Again he roused himself, and grasping his shovel devoted all his energies to digging a third hole, as if with the unswerving purpose of finding the clothes this time, whether they were there or not. No

result again, and my servant, in a profuse perspiration induced by overtaxed memory and hard work, sat down and rocked himself to and fro in sheer desperation. Then he sprang to his feet and walked hurriedly up and down round the groups of men, round the tent and the fires, his eyes in a steady fixed gaze upon the sand. Once more he paused, and taking a great resolution crawled timidly to my knees, and crouching respectfully on his heels begged for forgiveness. He could not find my honour's clothes!

I have told this little incident as an example of the exceedingly casual way in which a native servant performs his work, and not by way of accounting for our want of success that night; for Easton and I, posted in our machans, patiently watched our goats until day, undisturbed by the tiger. We have all read the thrilling accounts of successful shooting published in the sporting papers from time to time; but no one obtrudes a record of his monotonous wakeful nights, fruitlessly spent among the gloomy surroundings of the jungle waiting for the tiger that does not come !

Disappointed (perhaps unreasonably) at the tiger's failure to give us a meeting on the night we were prepared for him, we next day decided to let him take his chance, and arranged to spend the approaching night on the outlook for the sambhur which had tempted our guns on the previous one. I selected for my ambush a nook on a low sloping rock, overlooking a large pool round which there were numerous fresh tracks of deer. This nook I had roofed in roughly with khine-grass to keep off the heavy dews, and to assist in concealing me.

It was a lovely moonlight night, clear and cold, when I took up my station shortly after dark, accompanied by a young Karen, to whom I intrusted the responsibility of keeping me awake. Hour after hour we sat there three feet above the level of the sand to which the rock shelved gently down:

the startling bark of a distant deer, the musical ringing call of the bellbird, and the screaming of insects in the foliage around, were the only signs of life. Cold and chilly the night drew on, whilst on the far side of the pool, well out of range, an occasional sambhur issued from the jungle and stalked solitary and ghost-like across the sand, stopping every dozen yards to sniff the air suspiciously. Wearied and sleepy, I lay back against the rock as a sambhur disappeared for the third time without giving me a shot: my rifle lay across my knees, and some evil spirit prompted me to open the breech, that it might lie more easily upon them.

The moon was sinking, and the white clammy mist came rolling in huge billows down the mountain-side, hiding the trees thirty yards away, and making the night colder and damper with its heavy shroud. Darkness and discomfort have a bad effect on the nerves, and I felt, as I sat there, in no mood for great deeds of daring. Tired and indifferent I had dozed off to sleep, when my companion touched my arm lightly and whispered the single word, kya (tiger). I awoke with a start, and looked in the direction indicated. Here he was, coming slowly through the mist, straight towards the rock, with the easy rolling swagger a tiger affects when he is on the prowl. I clutch my rifle and snap the breech. Great heavens! for the first time since I owned the weapon, it refuses to close!

The tiger, off which I have not taken my eyes, has reached the foot of the rock, and attracted by my movements, deliberately pauses to gaze at the apparition it beholds. With the useless rifle in my hands, I sit facing it, utterly unable to move, and the Karen, crouched beside me with his head between his knees and his hands clasped above it, is trembling in every limb. The lithe grey-looking form is only six feet from me, and with two short steps can enter the nook and

select either of us at his leisure. The fixed stare of the blazing green eyeballs seems to paralyse me; for fully half a minute-it seemed an hour he stands there motionless, but at length passes on, still keeping his eyes on me until he disappears round the corner of the rock a few feet away.

Relieved of that appalling stare I breathe more freely, and straining my eyes in the direction I expect the tiger will take, with desperate eagerness exert all my strength to close the breech of the rifle. I can feel no obstruction, for it is of course too dark to see, but it will not close, and I pause-to see once more that mesmeric gaze fixed upon me!

It is

Dissatisfied with his first scrutiny, the tiger has passed round the rock and returned to repeat it. sickening. Helpless and dazed, I sit there blankly returning the steadfast stare that so perfectly unnerves me. This interview lasts longer than the first I cannot close my eyes even if I would. The perspiration streams down my face, and I feel the cold drops trickling slowly down my back. How I curse the brute for his calm dispassionate gaze! How I curse my own folly in not having selected a tree to shoot from! For now, though I am shaking all over, a strange defiant feeling is creeping over me, and --thank God! the tiger once more turns away, and this time quietly takes the path towards the opposite jungles, disappearing into the fogwrapped night. Gone! and I lie back and give way to a fit of "cold shivers," such as I have never felt before, and for half an hour I see nothing but eyes, round, fierce, glaring green eyes, wherever I turn my own.

No daybreak surely was ever so long delayed as that we now anxiously wait for, but it comes at length, and cramped and shivering I hasten to examine the rifle. A small, but thick fleshy leaf had found its way into the "grip" action, and, crushed though it was, the stringy fibres refused to allow the close-fitting mechanism to work. The Karen who is watching me murmurs in Burmese, " witchcraft," and after the night I have just passed through I am more than half inclined to agree with him.

We dragged ourselves back to camp, and at once organised a party to follow up the pugs, but our chase was useless : we neither saw nor heard anything of that tiger again during our stay.

Curiously enough, only two weeks. afterwards information was brought to Easton that a Karen who had selected that identical rock to shoot sambhur from, had been pounced upon and carried off by a tiger as he left his hiding-place just before daylight. Screams were heard by his brother, who occupied a safe position near, and on going to the spot at sunrise, he found the gun and bag belonging to his hapless relative on the sand. Tiger pugs and a few blood-marks told the silent tale, and not a vestige of the unfortunate man's body, or even of his clothing, was ever found by the friends who made search for his remains. Easton's informant added with grave simplicity: "The white face of your friend was new to the tiger: on that account he escaped."

My story is told. I have met tigers in various circumstances since, but of none have I so vivid a recollection as the one whose visit I have attempted to describe in this paper.

THE monster of Prairéal had a love. "The sea-green one," as the fussy, florid Madame de Staël first called him, and as Carlyle by dint of constant repetition has taught us all to call him, was beloved of a woman. Éléanore Duplay was the second daughter of Maurice Duplay, Robespierre's host in the little house in the Rue St. Honoré, where he lived with two short exceptions from July 17th, 1791, until his terrible death in 1794. Her father was not exactly a poor cabinet maker, or joiner as Thiers has it. He was a self-made man, it is true, born at St. Didier la Seauve in the Lyonnais, fifty years before the Revolution, who by energy in his business had acquired some fifteen thousand livres a year in house property, and lived in the better end of the Rue St. Honoré not very far from its junction with the Rue Royale. The district has been very considerably altered since the Revolution. It was then a block of buildings bounded on the north by the Boulevard de la Madeleine (then generally known as the Boulevard Rempart), on the west by the Rue Royale (also called the Rue Rempart), on the east by the Rue de Luxembourg and on the south by the Rue St. Honoré. The convent of the Conception faced the Rue Luxembourg, and its gardens stretched immediately behind the houses in the Rue St. Honoré of which Duplay's was one. The convent is now gone, and the whole block of buildings has been intersected by the Rue Duphot. The Rue de Rivoli had not then been constructed, and the Rue St. Honoré was still the main thoroughfare between east and west Paris north of the river. Duplay's house was No. 366: a new house was built on the site in 1816 and is numbered

398. The old house in which Robespierre lived was one of those curious structures with a carriage-gate and a courtyard inside, which may still be seen in the Quartier St. Germain. At one end of the courtyard was a shed for storing wood, and little gardens, some twenty feet square altogether, partitioned off between Duplay's five children at the other end was the workshop. The windows of the dwelling house looked out on the courtyard on one side, and on the other on the garden of the convent. The situation was of course eminently convenient to Robespierre. It was within five minutes walk of the Jacobins Club, and not much further from the meeting place of the Convention in the Tuileries, or of the Committee of Public Safety in the Place du Carousel. He lived in the house of Duplay, as has been said, for the most stirring period of his life, insisting on making a payment for his lodging, which Duplay very unwillingly received. The daughter Éléanore, was in the last year of Robespierre's life about twenty-five, he being then barely thirty-five. The story of their love has nothing in it so softly poetical as the love of Camille Desmoulins and his Lucile. There is no monument of it remaining so boisterously passionate as the loveletters of Mirabeau to Sophie. But as the picture of the softer side of a man who is not commonly supposed to have had any human weakness, except vanity, in his composition, the story of Maximilian Robespierre and the woman who was betrothed to him may be worth telling. I have tried to make her tell it in two letters to a friend in La Vendée. The friend is imaginary ; but there is no assertion in Mdlle. Duplay's story which