much, and we are brutalized and degraded; but within certain limits it enhances all the pleasures of life. When Captain Forsyth stood behind a tree on a sultry summer morning, and saw the tigress step softly through the long jungle grass, and the affrighted monkeys swing chattering overhead, there must have come upon him that sensation of awe which alone makes courage possible.[1] He knew that his life hung trembling in the balance, and that all depended upon the first shot he fired. He respected, as a sane man would, the mighty strength of his antagonist, her graceful limbs instinct with power, her cruel eyes blinking in the yellow dawn. And born of the fear, which stirred but could not conquer him, came the keen transport of the hunter, who feels that one such supremely heroic moment is worth a year of ordinary life. Without that dread, not only would the joy be lessened, and the glad rebound from danger to a sense of safety lost forever, but the disciplined and manly courage of the English soldier would degenerate into a mere
- ↑ The Highlands of Central India. By Captain James Forsyth.
