With the exception of such parts as may be infested by tigers, the post seldom or never fails of arriving within an hour of its appointed time; except, as has been observed, when the waters are out; in which case, many circuitous roads must be followed, whereby the way is considerably lengthened in the aggregate. Taking the average, a hundred miles per day may be run over by the _dawk_, or post, in fair weather. Each mail-bag is conveyed by an _hirkarah_, (or runner,) who is attended by one or two _doog-doogy-wallahs_, or drummers, who keep up a kind of ‘long-roll,’ as they pass any suspicious place. Ordinarily, two _mosaulchees_, or link-bearers, accompany each _dawk_; and, where tigers are known to commit depredations, one or two _teerin-dauzes_, or archers, are supplied, under the intention of protecting the party. But such puny aid is of no avail; for the onset of the tiger is too sudden, and too discomfiting, to allow any effort of consequence to be timously adopted: the very act of seizure is a death-blow, from which I never heard of any recovery; provided the unhappy victim were not so particularly situated as to prevent it from decidedly taking effect.
Here it may be needful to explain, that a tiger invariably strikes his prey with the fore paw, in so forcible a manner as often to fracture the skull; which, generally, is the object aimed at: many oxen have had their cheek bones shivered by the contusion. It sometimes happens, that the marks of one or two claws are to be seen, but they are generally _en passant_, and by no means the result of primary intention. The wrist of a tiger being often nearly two feet in circumference, may give some idea of the violence with which the _coup de grace_ falls on the head of a human being! The _mosauls_, or _flambeaux_, are intended to intimidate the tigers, as are also the _doog-doogies_, but experience has shewn that, when hungry, tigers are not to be restrained by any such device: indeed, instances have occurred of the _mosaulchees_ themselves being carried off. It would, nevertheless, be presumptuous to judge from such partial data, that many tigers are not deterred by the noise and fire accompanying the letter-carriers; on the contrary, there should rather seem a probability, that many young tigers, or such grown ones as may not be hungry, nor be attended by cubs, are frequently intimidated from those attacks they would make but for these precautions. A residence of two years at Hazary-Bang, the station for a battalion in the Ramghur district, enabled me to form a fair estimate of the dangers to which the _dawk_, and travellers in general, were subject. During some seasons, the roads were scarcely to be considered passable; day after day, for nearly a fortnight in succession, some of the _dawk_ people were carried off, either at Goomeah, Kannachitty, Katcumsandy, or Dungaie; four passes in that country, all famous for the exploits of these enemies to the human race!