The only visible difference between the two', added the
Sarimant, 'is that the metamorphosed tiger has _no tail_, while the
_bora_, or ordinary tiger, has a very long one. In the jungle about
Deori', continued he, 'there is a root, which, if a man eat of, he is
converted into a tiger on the spot; and if, in this state, he can eat
of another, he becomes a man again--a melancholy instance of the
former of which', said he, 'occurred, I am told, in my own father's
family when I was an infant. His washerman, Raghu, was, like all
washermen, a great drunkard; and, being seized with a violent desire
to ascertain what a man felt in the state of a tiger, he went one day
to the jungle and brought home two of these roots, and desired his
wife to stand by with one of them, and the instant she saw him assume
the tiger shape, to thrust it into his mouth. She consented, the
washerman ate his root, and became instantly a tiger; but his wife
was so terrified at the sight of her husband in this shape that she
ran off with the antidote in her hand. Poor old Raghu took to the
woods, and there ate a good many of his old friends from neighbouring
villages; but he was at last shot, and recognized from the
circumstance of his _having no tail_.
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