THE TIGER
A tigerto the majority of men is probably the most impressive and suggestive of all animals. Apart from those traits so obvious in his appearance that they affect every one, most beholders have in their minds some material with which imagination works under the quickening influence of his deadly eye. No creature matches him in general powers of destruction; none enacts such tragedies as he, amid scenes so replete with a various interest; none sheds so much human blood.
The hunter’s spirit natural to our remoter ancestors survives in their descendants, and few persons are placed under circumstances favorable for its revival without experiencing something of its force. When tigers are the objects of pursuit, this often becomes a passion.
THE TIGER.[From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. Copyright.]
THE TIGER.[From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. Copyright.]
THE TIGER.
[From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. Copyright.]
One can scarcely look upon the poor, dispirited wretch behind the bars of a cage, without freeing it in fancy, and transferring the animal to fitting surroundings,—open spaces in jungle, where tall jowaree grass waves in the evening air, deep nálás clothed with karinda and tamarisk, vast, gloomy forests of sál and teak, magnificent mountain buttresses, upon whose crags stand the ruined fortresses of long-forgotten chiefs. The tiger of the mind, splendid and terrible is there, and we are there to meet him.
“In some parts of India,” remarks Inglis (“Work and Sport on the Nepaul Frontier”), “notably in the Deccan, in certain districts on the Bombay side, and even in the Soonderbunds, near Calcutta, sportsmen and shikáris go after tigers on foot. I must confess that this seems to me a mad thing to do. With every advantage of weapon, with the most daring courage, and the most imperturbable coolness, I think a man no fair match for a tiger in his native jungles.” The list of killed and wounded shows that this opinion is not without foundation; and when we consider what it means to meet such adversaries as these on level ground, and face to face, our judgment of its accuracy cannot be doubtful. Gérard compared a contest on foot with a lion to a duel between adversaries armed with equally efficient weapons, but one naked and the other covered with armor in which there were only one or two spots that were not impenetrable. He intended to illustrate, not the animal’s invulnerability, of course, but the fact that its tenacity of life was such that, unless instantly killed, it would almost certainly kill its opponent. For this reason sportsmen mostly shoot from howdahs, or machans in tree-jungle. In its depths a great forest is nearly lifeless at all times. In India its skirts are commonly fringed with scrub, and there most of the vitality of these regions concentrates itself. The intense heat of noonday at that season when tiger-hunting begins—namely, in April—makes those immense woodlands as silent and lonesome, to all appearance, as if the hand of death had been laid upon them. But when the short twilight of low latitudes deepens into gloom, the air, before vacant, except for thewide sweep of some solitary bird of prey, is filled with the voices of feathered flocks returning to their roosts. Flying foxes cross vistas still open to the view, and great horned owls flit by on muffled wings. Those spectral shapes which haunt such scenes appear amid the solemn gathering of shadows—contrasts in shade indescribably altering objects from what they are, waving boughs and rigid tree trunks that start into strange relief in changing lights, the distorted forms of animals indistinctly seen moving stealthily about. Throughout those provinces where the most famous tiger haunts are found, positions of advantage, each beetling cliff and isolated hill, holds mementos of the past which are now inexpressibly desolate; the former strongholds of Rajpúts that may, like the Baghél clan, have claimed descent from a royal tiger. As we sit aloft watching, a gleam of water, where when gorged the beast will drink, is visible, and towards that also, each with infinite precaution, and guided by senses of whose range and delicacy of perception human beings cannot conceive, the thirsty denizens of this wilderness take their way. When we mark their timid and uncertain steps, and see how often they hesitate and stop and turn aside, the truth that “nature’s peace” is only a form of words expressive of our own misconception and blindness reveals itself most impressively. There is no peace. To hunt and be hunted, to slay and be slain, that is the cycle of all actual life.
Here, while the solemn booming of the great rock monkey sounds like a death knell, those tragedies take place which only a hunter beholds. Every creature hasits enemy, and there is one abroad in the gloaming from which all fly. Listen! Above the sambur’s hoarse bark, the bison’s cavernous bellow, and hyæna’s unearthly cry, a deep, flat, hollow voice, thrilling with power, floats through the forest. It is a tiger rounding up deer. If he were in ambush, not the slightest sound would betray his presence. Now his roar, sent from different directions, crowds the game together, and puts it at his mercy.
When and in what way will our tiger come? Some of these beasts never return to a “kill,” they lap the blood, or eat once, and abandon their quarry altogether. Others consume it wholly in one or several meals, and even after putrefaction has set in. This animal for whom we wait may approach boldly while it is yet light, or wait till darkness falls, and appear at any hour of the night. At its coming it might put in practice every precaution that could be made use of in stealing upon living prey, or walk openly towards the carcass with long, swinging, soft but heavy strides.
Incidents of any special kind, however, reveal the tiger’s nature only in part. What sort of a being is this in whole; how much mind does he possess; what are the traits common to his species; and what their individual peculiarities? Do tigers roar like lions and jaguars, and is it probable that their neighborhood would be announced in this manner? Are they in the habit of going about by day; and if not, on what kind of nights is the beast most active and aggressive? How does a tiger take his prey, especially man? How far can one spring; in what way does he kill; what is his mode of devouring creatures? Can tigersclimb? How large are they? Will they assail human beings without provocation, or has the aspect of humanity a restraining power over them? May they be met with casually, and at any time? Where are their favorite lairs? Are they brave or cowardly, cunning or stupid, enterprising, adaptive, energetic, or the reverse?
Sanderson declares that the tiger never roars; he grunts according to Major Bevan, and the only approach to roaring Baldwin ever heard, was a hollow, hoarse, moaning cry, made by holding his head close to the ground. Inglis describes the sound as like the fall of earth into some deep cavity, and Colonel Davidson protests that the tiger barks. Pollok, Leveson, Shakespear, and Rice assert that he roars loudly, terribly, magnificently, tremendously; and D’Ewes (“Sporting in Both Hemispheres”) states that in comparison with the roar of a tigress he encountered in the jungle between Ballary and Dharwar, “any similar sound he may have heard, either at the zoölogical gardens or elsewhere, was like a penny trumpet beside an ophicleide.” All these names are those of men who hold the most conspicuous positions among hunters of large game; all had killed many tigers and often heard the animal’s voice.
Much the same contradictory evidence exists with regard to other things. Colonel Pollok assures us that if he trusted to ambushing game to supply himself with food he would starve to death. Captain Rice, a renowned slayer of tigers, lays down the law to this effect, that these brutes never attack except from an ambush.
Without crowding the page with references, suffice it to say that both by day and night, in forests, thickets, and opengrass land, tigers have many times been reported by equally reliable witnesses both to stalk their game, and to spring upon it from a place of concealment.
The striped assassin is provided with a jaw and teeth that enable him to crush the large bones of a buffalo. He can strike his claws, as Major Bevan saw him do, through the skull of an ox into its brain, or break a horse’s back with a blow of his forearm. How then does he despatch his victims? Their necks are dislocated, says Colonel Pollok; by biting into them and wrenching round the head with his paws, explains Captain Forsyth. Not at all, protests Baldwin;—dislocation is effected by bending the head backward. In neither way, Dr. Jerdon declares;—the animal’s neck is always broken by a blow. Sir Samuel Baker adds his testimony to the effect that a tiger never strikes, and Sanderson says “the blow with his paw is a fable.” Other authorities maintain that the cervical vertebræ are crushed when the beast, as it always does, bites the back of the neck; and yet others are sure that since he never seizes an animal in this manner, loss of blood is the immediate cause of death, because the great vessels are severed when a tiger, as is his invariable practice, cuts into the throat. Sanderson states that the blood is not sucked, since a tiger could not form the necessary vacuum. In response to this Shakespear and Davidson bothsawthe blood of animals that had been tied up as lures sucked, and Colonel Campbell, Captain Rice, Major Leveson, and others speak of this act as having come under their personal cognizance.
These animals have been so generally credited with greatspringing power that the expressions, “tiger’s leap,” and “tiger’s bound,” have passed into the colloquial phrases of more than one language. Nevertheless, when the experiences of eye-witnesses of his performances in this way are referred to, nothing but contradictions are to be met with.
Sanderson (“Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India”) thinks “the tiger’s powers of springing are inconsiderable.” Sir Joseph Fayrer (“The Royal Tiger”) says that “it is doubtful whether a tiger ever bounds when charging,” and Inglis supports him in this particular. Captain Shakespear regarded a machan twelve feet high as perfectly secure, and Captain Baldwin felt that he was safe when fifteen feet above the ground. Moray Brown saw a tiger jump fourteen feet high. J. H. Baldwin (“The Large and Small Game of Bengal”) reports a case in which a tiger leaped the stockade of a cattle-pen “with a large full-grown ox in his mouth,” and Dr. Fayrer gives, in the work referred to, the only authentic story of a tiger’s having taken a man out of a howdah while the elephant was on his feet. Major G. A. R. Dawson describes the accident that occurred to General Morgan from a wounded tigress that sprang across a ravine twenty-five feet wide and struck him down. Captain W. Rice (“Tiger Shooting in India”) measured the leap of a tigress he shot, and found it to be “over seven yards.”
Professor Blyth and Dr. Jerdon concluded from their researches at the Calcutta Museum and elsewhere that tigers could not climb. It was certainly a very singular conclusion to come to on anatomical grounds; but waiving this point, we have the statements of Inglis and Shakespearto the fact that several were shot in trees. It is not worth while to continue these inquiries as to whether it is possible to discover something certain about tigers from books; on all points connected with them we should find the same discordances.
Although Buffon’s extravagances (“Histoire Naturelle”) about this brute’s disposition need not be seriously considered,—such expressions as “sa ferocité n’est comparable à rien” meaning nothing, and no creature, for physiological reasons, being capable of remaining in “a perpetual rage,”—enough is known about the beast to make it doubtful whether it deserves the “whitewashing” that some have given its character. But if it be granted that tigers possess intelligence, that in many places they have become acquainted with the effects of European firearms, and are not at all likely to mistake an Englishman with a rifle for a Hindu carrying a staff, many things which seem inexplicably at variance will become plain. If rage does not overpower their discretion, they run away when the prospect of certain death stares them in the face. What do they do when it does not? that is the question at present, and the answer is that they act like tigers. This most formidable of beasts of prey is not in the least afraid of a man because he is a man; he does not quail at his glance—that enrages him; his voice will not always startle,—it often attracts; nor can the scent of a human being of itself turn him aside—on the contrary, it frequently guides the beast to his prey. So much for the general view; and we may now go into the jungle again and discuss what befalls, in the light of those principles which have beenadvanced elsewhere. This will be aduróraagainst the tigers of a district, our hunting-grounds lie in historic spots, and the party is accompanied by elephants, baggage animals, attendants, and all the varied appliances that belong to a raid of this kind conducted upon a large scale.
Close to our camp lie the crumblingcedghas, shrines, tombs, and fortress palaces of a race of princes now extinct, and seated in a kiosk around whose crumbling walls half-effaced Persian and Arabic inscriptions tell of the beauty of some girl whose bright eyes closed ages ago, and whose career of ineffectual passion finds a fit emblem in thepishash, or transient dust column that glides across the plain, let us attempt to forecast the events of to-morrow. More can be foretold than one would suppose. The tiger’s size and age, the configuration of the ground, his previous habits of life, and the places where shade and water are to be found, will certainly affect his movements after he has been roused, and when the shikáris come in we shall know all this. Here is the head huntsman now, who comes back from his scout to make a report to the “Captain of the hunt,” an experienced sportsman always elected on such occasions to take a general direction of affairs, and manœuvre our elephants in the field. Mohammed Kasim Ali is a typical figure and worth looking at; a small withered being with a dingy turban wound around his straggling elf locks; dressed in a ragged shirt of Mhowa green, and lugging a matchlock as long as himself loaded half way up the barrel. He bears the big bison horn of coarse slow-burning native powder, and asmall gazelle-horn primer. His person is bedecked with amulets, and his beard, he being an elderly man, is dyed red—if he were young, it would be stained gray. But despite this man’s grotesque appearance, he possesses a profound knowledge of wood-craft, and as a tracker and interpreter of signs, no savage or white prodigy of the wilderness who ever embellished the pages of a certain style of romance can surpass him.
This worthy delivers himself somewhat as follows: “May I be your sacrifice! Whilst searching with eagerness for these sons of the devil, your slave beheld the footprints of a tiger.Alla ke Qoodrut, it is the power of God; then why should your servant defile his mouth with lies? These tracks were made by the great-grandfather of all tigers. The livers of Chinneah and Gogooloo turned to water at the sight, but sustained by my Lord’s condescension I followed them to a nálá, and he was standing by a pool. Karinda and tamarisk bushes grew more thickly than lotus flowers in Paradise, but I saw clearly that the unsainted beast was bigger than a buffalo bull. His teeth were as iron rakes, his eyes glared like bonfires, and the spirits of those whom he had devoured sat upon his head.” This with many aspirations, to the effect that unquenchable fire might consume the souls of the tiger’s entire family.
This rhodomontade—quite in keeping, however, with the individual and his country—means that a large tiger was seen, and will be found for us next day.
The one that Kasim Ali, the eloquent, saw by the pool was making ready for his nightly excursion; for althoughthey are frequently seen abroad by day, these animals are nocturnal in habit. The writer, however, sees no reason for repeating a remark which is often made in this connection, namely, that they are “half-blind” during daylight. There is no rigidity in the iris, nothing to prevent the eye from adjusting itself to different degrees of intensity in that medium by which the retina is stimulated. He sees very well at night, and if sensitive to a strong light, so are many other animals whose vision is also good when it is not dark. It is habitual with tigers to seek shade; and any eyes, except those of some birds, would be dazzled by the intense glare of an Indian sun.
When viewed by the shikáris, he had lately roused from his rest as the day declined, and the faint lowing of distant herds, and far-away voices ofGwallasbringing home their cattle penetrated to his retreat. He stretched his lithe length and magnificent limbs, his fierce eyes dilated, and a strange and terrible change came over the beast. Every attitude and motion betrayed his purpose. But although murder was in his mind, and all that he did revealed that intention, his movements varied, or would do so, with age and experience. If the animal were young, and had been but recently separated from the tigress, that taught him to find prey, showed how to attack it, and encouraged him to kill for the sake of practice, his actions would exhibit all the boldness that comes from entire self-confidence. He then leaves the lair without precaution, and takes his way through the intricacies of the jungle with confidence, not pausing to examine every sign, as his trail shows. If old, however, an unusual sound would stop him,a footprint in the path that was not there when he last passed would turn him aside. This tiger of ours is not aged, but has learned something since he became solitary like all his kind, except in the brief season of pairing. Experience may be thrown away on men, but not upon tigers. This one will never again make mistakes such as those into which overboldness and want of proper attention have already betrayed him. Once, shortly after he began to shift for himself, a buffalo, of whom he thought that it could be killed as easily as a slim long-necked native cow, tossed him. Another time when too hungry to wait for a favorable opportunity, he seized upon a calf prematurely. No sooner did his roar of triumph as he struck it dead echo through the jungle, than a dark crescentic line fringed with clashing horns confronted him. It came on in quick irregular rushes, and no tiger could withstand such an array, so he had to fly. His glossy hide was ripped likewise by a “grim gray tusker,” which the unsophisticated youth designed to despatch without difficulty. Before these instructive incidents occurred something more had been learned also.
One morning the silence was broken by blasts of cholera horns, the beating of tom-toms, and wild cries from a multitude of men—such men, however, as he knew and had frequently observed in the jungle and elsewhere. But there was now a man, mounted on an elephant, the like of which he had never seen, but whose appearance is not forgotten. He had guns far worse than matchlocks, instruments of sudden death that killed his mother. This formidable robber, for all his ferocioustemper, great strength, and terrible means of offence, is as cunning as a fox, and wary to a degree that closely simulates cowardice. But one might as well call North American Indians cowards,—which by the way is often done by those whose opinions are unbiassed by any personal acquaintance with them,—because they always fight on the principle of taking the greatest advantage and least risk.
To start a party such as ours takes time, and of the value of time no Hindu has the slightest idea. The mob of beaters are packed off with strenuous injunctions to keep together, but they will not do so. An ineradicable heedlessness besets them, and they are certain to straggle, though the risk that doing so entails is perfectly well understood. The Oriental says, “If it is my fate to perish thus, how can I avoid the decree of heaven? My destiny is fixed; it is in the hands of God, and may the devil take these infidels who talk as if matters could be otherwise than as they are.”
Every crupper, breast-band, girth, and howdah cloth must be looked to by the hunters themselves; mahouts and attendants cannot be trusted to equip their charges, and if things were left to them, an elephant would be disabled every day.
All our proceedings as we draw near to the tiger require to be conducted with reference to the lie of the land. Whether he be beaten for with elephants, or roused by the unearthly clamor of the crowd that has come to drive him, it is probable that his first act will be an attempt to escape. He carries a perfect topographical chart of theneighborhood in his head, and an unguarded avenue of egress means that we shall not carry back his spoils. When he does start, it will not be with the wild, affrighted rush of a bison or sambur stag; his retirement, if he is not actually sighted, is made with the deathly silence of an elephant warned of danger. He makes use of every mode of concealment, creeps from bush to bush, from tree to tree, from rock to rock, crouching where cover grows thin or fails, so that the colors of his coat assimilate with those of the herbage, and he becomes well nigh invisible even in places where it seems utterly impossible for so large an animal to hide himself. In denser jungle the fugitive stops and stands with head erect to listen, or rears up amid long jowaree grass, taking in every sight and sound that indicates the position of his enemies. Thus his advance is made towards the point at which it is intended to break away; and if it be necessary to cross bare spots, he does so, not indeed with a panther’s lightning-like rapidity, but in long, easy bounds that devour the distance.
Under all circumstances, if the ground is sufficiently broken to permit of it, the tiger keeps among ravines, at one time traversing the crest of a ridge, at another stealing along through the underbrush below. Then it is that the pad-elephants and lookouts in trees come into play in order to turn him in the direction where the rifles are stationed; the former by their presence, the latter by softly striking small sticks together.
It is very likely, however, that the surface may not admit of beating with men; then the sportsmen advance in their howdahs, and one may see how a highly-trained shikar tusker can work.
Sir Samuel Baker (“Wild Beasts and Their Ways”) described the qualities of a good hunting animal in action. His party were out near Moorwara. It was in the dry season, and they were keeping on a line parallel with the railroad, and about twenty miles from it. The heat had evaporated tanks, caused upland springs to fail, and dried up pools and watercourses, so that tigers, that cannot endure thirst, were driven from their accustomed retreats into places more accessible. On this occasion the natives were beating towards Baker’s elephant, but the beast, as it sometimes does, broke back upon their line at once.
“We were startled,” he continues, “by the tremendous roars of this tiger, continued in quick succession within fifty yards of the position I then occupied. I never heard, either before or since, such a volume of sound proceed from a single animal. There was a horrible significance in the grating and angry voice that betokened extreme fury of attack. Not an instant was lost. The mahout was an excellent man, as cool as a cucumber, and never over-excited. He obeyed the order to advance straight towards the spot where the angry roars still continued without intermission.
“Moolah Box was a thoroughly dependable elephant; but although moving forward with a majestic and determined step, it was in vain that I endeavored to hurry the mahout. Both man and beast appeared to understand their business completely, but according to my ideas the pace was woefully slow if assistance was required in danger.
“The ground was slightly rising, and the jungle thick with saplings about twenty feet in height, and as thick asa man’s leg; these formed an undergrowth among the larger forest trees.
“Moolah Box crashed with his ponderous weight through the resisting mass, bearing down all obstacles before him as he steadily made his way across the intervening growth. The roars had now ceased. There were no leaves on the trees at this advanced season, and one could see the natives among the branches in all directions, as they perched for safety on the limbs to which they had climbed like monkeys at the terrible sounds of danger. ‘Where is the tiger?’ I shouted to the first man we could distinguish in his safe retreat only a few yards distant. ‘Here! here!’ he replied, pointing immediately beneath him. Almost at the same instant, the tiger, which had been lying ready for attack, sprang forward with a loud roar directly for Moolah Box.
“There were so many trees intervening that I could not fire, and the elephant, instead of halting, moved forward, meeting the tiger in his spring. With a swing of his huge head he broke down several tall saplings, that crashed towards the infuriated tiger and checked his onset. Discomfited for a moment, he bounded in retreat, and Moolah Box stood suddenly like a rock, without the slightest movement. This gave me a splendid opportunity, and the .577 bullet rolled him over like a rabbit. Almost at the same instant, having performed a somersault, the tiger disappeared, and fell struggling among the high grass and bushes about fifteen paces distant.
“I now urged Moolah Box carefully forward until I could plainly see the tiger’s shoulders, and then a secondshot through the exact centre of the blade-bone terminated its existence.”
In this attack four men were wounded, but it is not often that a tiger charges home upon a line of beaters; generally, only stragglers suffer, although, as has been said, some tigers attack immediately upon being found. Whenever and however the assault is made, it must needs be a terrible one, and to most creatures at once overwhelming. Imagine a beast like this, so active, so powerful, so armed,—five hundred pounds’ weight of incarnated destructive energy launched by such muscles as his against an enemy. “It has been the personification of ferocity and unsparing cruelty,” says Sir Samuel Baker. But it is to the terrible character of its attack, to the fact that this is so frequently fatal, and to the awe-inspiring appearance of the beast as it comes on with dilated form and fire-darting eyes, that much of its reputation for more than ordinary ferocity is due. A tiger is beyond question the most formidable of all predatory creatures when earnest in his aggressive intentions; very frequently, however, he is not so. False charges, made in order to intimidate, are more common than real ones. A tiger will bristle, and snarl, and roar, apparently with a perfect consciousness of the additional impressiveness given to his general appearance in this way. Some are, of course, braver than others; locality and their experience of human power make a wide difference between those whose characters have been formed in separate areas. Still everywhere their temper is short and fierce, and when roused to fury they fight desperately. When we hear of the abject cowardiceof these beasts,—how they slink away from before the face of man and cannot endure his look, how they will never assail him if not provoked, and how they die like curs at last,—it is natural, and a mere suggestion of common sense, to think that these areex partestatements, premature generalizations, sweeping conclusions from special experiences, and misinterpretations of observations that a little diligence and proper intellectual sincerity upon the part of their narrators would have shown to be more than counterbalanced by facts of a different complexion.
No two tigers are identical in anything, and all the elements of uncertainty and dispute which have been specified make their appearance when we come into contact with them. Nobody knows or can know what will happen then. Silently like some grim ghost, the animal may steal within shot, and fall dead at the first fire. Sometimes he bursts from a dense clump of bushes that the hunter’s sight has been unable to penetrate, and if hit, rages round the tree from which the ball came as if mad; or, if his foes be within reach, he kills or is killed. Occasionally when not well watched by lookouts, the first intimation that his domain has been invaded is the signal for a retreat to some secure hiding-place,—the pits and passages of an abandoned mine, or a cave perhaps, in which latter case, if it be attempted to dislodge him by an indraught of smoke from fire kindled at its mouth, it will be seen that a tiger can breathe in an atmosphere such as would seem to be necessarily fatal to any animal. Finally, the brute may break back and attack the beaters, or creep through their line,or charge the elephants, and perish amid the wildest display of fury and desperation. Finally, as it sometimes, though rarely happens, the first stir in the jungle sends him off by an unguarded path across ridges and plains to some distant lair, and the hunt for that day is bootless.
Tiger-shooting is never without danger to the sportsman. Many a man has been clawed out of a tree and killed, or caught before he could get out of reach. Elephants have been pulled down, or the howdah ropes have broken and precipitated its occupants into the tiger’s jaws. Moreover, nine elephants out of ten are not stanch, they become panic-stricken and bolt; in which event the risk of being dashed to death against a tree is greater than that of any other fatal accident that is likely to occur.
Most accounts of tigers are confined to their connection with mankind; but if this be the more important, it certainly is not the more general relationship. Out of the large number born every year (though not in the same season, for these animals pair irregularly) few come in contact with human beings. They prey upon the larger animals of their respective provinces, both wild and domestic, but, of course, chiefly upon the former. In this way they are of positive benefit to the agricultural class. Baldwin, Sanderson, Leveson and others, whose observations made upon the spot, and with the best opportunities for knowing the truth in this matter, are not likely to be incorrect, state that but for the aid rendered by tigers in keeping down the numbers of grain-eating species, the Indian cultivator would find it almost impossible to live. No doubt the same condition of things prevails in otherparts of Asia. Cattle-lifters, however, impose a heavy tax on the country, and as these generally grow fat, lazy, and rarely hunt, they are a decided disadvantage to any neighborhood. Furthermore, it is from among this class that most man-eaters come. In districts to which cattle are driven to graze, and then withdrawn when the grass fails, tigers accustomed to haunt the vicinity of herds, and that have remained for the most part guiltless of human blood so long as their supply of beef lasted, are apt to eat the inhabitants when it fails. One of these marauders upon livestock will kill an ox every five days, and smaller domestic animals proportionately often, and it is easy to see that the cost of supporting them must be very considerable.
So much has been said in connection with other beasts of prey upon the subject of those reports in which each group is represented to have an invariable way of capturing and killing game, that it seems unnecessary to enlarge upon this point with reference to tigers. They stalk animals, and spring upon them from an ambush. When a victim has been caught, it is destroyed by a blow with the arm, its neck vertebræ are crushed by a bite, its throat is cut, or head wrenched round. Very probably the tiger does not strike habitually like a lion. He often does so, however, and the fact that one was seen to drive his claws into the brain of an ox has been mentioned. Sir Joseph Fayrer reports the case of a tiger that dashed into a herd, “and in his spring struck down simultaneously a cow with each fore foot.” Major H. A. Leveson (“Hunting Grounds of the Old World”) saw one of his men killed in the Annámullayforest in this manner. “His death,” says Leveson, “must have been instantaneous, as the tigress with the first blow of her paw crushed his skull, and his brains were scattered about.”
“I venture to assert,” says Colonel Gordon Cumming (“Wild Men and Wild Beasts”), “that one of the chief characteristics of the tiger is, that in its wild state, it will only feed on prey of its own killing.” No other name of equal weight has been appended to a statement such as this. On the contrary, nearly all evidence goes to show that tigers are very indiscriminate in their eating, that they feed on almost anything, living or dead, fresh or putrid. Captain Walter Campbell (“The Old Forest Ranger”) mentions the fact of their appropriating game already killed as coming under his personal observation; and Major Leveson (“Sport in Many Lands”) records that he shot two tigers in the Wynaad forest while they were engaged in a desperate fight for the possession of a deer’s carcass. It is notorious that tigers so constantly destroy their cubs that the tigress leaves her mate almost immediately after they are born, and conceals her young. There are several instances in which she herself has been devoured, and there is no doubt of the cannibalism of this beast. J. Moray Brown (“Shikar Sketches”), speaking of the frequency of combats between tigers, says that, “occasionally the victor eats the vanquished.” Colonel Pollok (“Sport in British Burmah”) informs us that “when two tigers contend for the right of slaughtering cattle in any particular locality, one is almost sure to be killed, and, perhaps, eaten by the other. I have known instances ofthis happening.” General W. C. Andersson shot a tiger in Kandeish, within whose body he found the recently ingested remains of another, whose head and paws were lying close by in the jungle. General Blake also discovered, near Rungiah in Assam, the partially devoured body of a tiger that had been killed by one of its own kind.
Except incidentally, technical details bearing upon character have not been mentioned; the tiger’s size, however, has no doubt a marked influence upon his mental traits. Looking upon a trail that goes straight towards the water, which other creatures approach so differently, one sees how the animal that left those footprints—nearly square in the male, oval in case of a tigress—felt no fear of any adversary, and therefore must have been of considerable bulk. Not only the best authorities, so far as formal zoölogy is concerned, but almost every one who has devoted special attention to this subject, gives the length of an average tiger, when fully developed, at about nine feet six inches from tip to tip. The female is quite twelve inches shorter. Many writers, however, admit the existence of tigers ten feet long, and no one is in a position to deny that some may attain to that length. But when a writer like Sir Joseph Fayrer (“The Royal Tiger of Bengal”) says that he has “measured their bodies as they lay dead on the spot where they had fallen,” and found them to be “more than eleven feet from the nose to the end of the tail,” there is nothing to be replied, except that, very few persons have been so fortunate as to see the like. There was once, indeed, a tiger-slayer who used to shoot specimensfourteen feet long and over, but he died gallantly in battle, and his name need not be given.
With regard to the structure of his brain, the tiger is gyrencephalous; that is to say, the lobes exhibit a certain degree of convolution. It may also be said that the cerebral hemispheres project backwards so as to cover the anterior border of the cerebellum, and that these greater segments of the encephalon are completely connected. The nervous structure is not of the highest type known to exist among inferior animals, but it is quite high enough not to militate against an empirical conclusion that this creature’s actions show it to be organically very capable.
Of the details of the every-day life of the tiger we know comparatively little. Thousands of cattle, for instance, are killed every year in India, and yet there is but one narrative, so far as the writer knows, of a tiger having been seen to stalk a quadruped of this kind. It is quoted by J. Moray Brown (“Shikar Sketches”) from Captain Pierson’s relation of the incident. While hunting in the jungles of Kamptee, he saw from the edge of a ravine on which he was resting, a herd grazing on the ground just below, and a tigress at a little distance reconnoitering. Her choice fell in the first place upon a white cow that was straggling, and she approached till within about eighty yards under cover of the bushes, and then broke into a trot. The cow, however, became aware of her danger, and after standing a moment as if paralyzed with fear, dashed into the midst of her companions. The tigress, which during this time had continued to advance, then charged at once,and “in a few seconds she picked out a fine young cow, upon whose shoulders she sprang, and they both rolled over in a heap. When the two animals were still again, we could distinctly see the cow standing up with her neck embraced by the tigress, which was evidently sucking her jugular. The poor creature then made a few feeble efforts to release herself, which the tigress resented by breaking her neck.” Major H. Bevan (“Thirty Years in India”) saw a tiger “knock over a bullock with a single blow on the haunch, and seizing the throat, lay across the body sucking the blood.” Major Leveson (“Hunting Grounds of the Old World”), while lying out by a pool at night, witnessed the death of a sambur deer that was struck down and instantly killed by a tiger. Various narratives of the tiger’s attack might be quoted, but his behavior while stealing upon his prey, the manner in which he seeks for it, and the way in which it is discovered, these are points that we know very little about.
“The tiger is a shy, morose, and unsociable brute,” Dr. Fayrer remarks, “but like all animals of high type, the range of individual differences is very great.” “Nearly every tiger,” observes Moray Brown, “has a certain character for ferocity, wiliness or the reverse—of being a man-eater, cattle-lifter, or game-killer—which is well known to the jungle folk.”
The tiger’s overlordship of the jungle is not maintained without some reverses. A bear sometimes beats him off, but usually these contests end in the bear’s being devoured. Sanderson, together with others, reports this upon personal observation. Wild boars occasionally avenge thedeath of their fellows. Inglis found the bodies of both combatants lying side by side.
Single buffaloes are killed by a tiger; but when a herd is combined against him, as is always the case when his presence is discovered, he has no chance of success. Inglis (“Work and Sport on the Nepaul Frontier”) describes such an event, and as it is the only narrative of this kind the author has met with, his account is given in full.
“One of the most exciting and deeply interesting scenes I ever witnessed in the jungles ... took place in the month of March, at the village of Ryseree, in Bhaugulpore.
“I was sitting in my tent going over some accounts with the village putwarrie and my gomasta. A posse of villagers were grouped under the grateful shade of a gnarled old mango tree, whose contorted limbs bore witness to many a tufan and tempest which it had weathered. The usual confused clamor of tongues was rising up from this group, and the subject of debate was the eternal ‘pice’ [small coins].
“A number of horses were picketed in the shade, and behind the horses, each manacled by weighty chains, with their ponderous trunks and ragged-looking tails swaying to and fro with a never-ceasing motion, stood a line of ten elephants. Their huge leathery ears flapped lazily, and ever and anon one would seize a branch, and belabor his corrugated sides to free himself from the detested and troublesome flies.
“Suddenly there was a hush. Every sound seemed tostop simultaneously as by prearranged concert. Then three men were seen rushing madly along the elevated ridge surrounding one of the tanks. I recognized one of my peons, and with him there were two cowherds. Their head-dresses were all disarranged, and their parted lips, heaving chests, and eyes blazing with excitement, showed that they were brimful of some unusual message.
“Now there arose such a bustle in the camp as no description could adequately portray. The elephants trumpeted and piped; the syces and grooms came pushing up with eager questions; the villagers bustled about like so many ants roused by the approach of a foe; my pack of terriers yelped in chorus; the pony neighed; the Cabool stallion plunged about; my servants rushed from the shelter of the tent-veranda with disordered dress; the ducks rose in a quacking crowd, and circled round and round the tent; and the cry arose of ‘Bagh! Bagh! Khodawund! Arree Bap re Bap! Ram Ram, Seeta Ram!’
“Breathless with running, the men now tumbled up and hurriedly salaamed; then each with gasps and choking stops, and pell-mell volubility, and amid a running fire of cries, queries, and interjections from the mob, began to unfold their tale. There was an infuriated tigress on the other side of the nullah, or dry watercourse, and she had attacked a herd of buffaloes, and it was believed she had cubs.
“Already Debnarain Singh was getting his own pad-elephant caparisoned, and my bearer was diving under my camp bed for the rifles and cartridges. Knowing thelittle elephant to be a fast walker, and fairly stanch, I got upon her back, and accompanied by the gomasta and mahout we set out, followed by the peon and herdsmen to show us the way.
“I expected two friends, officers from Calcutta, that very day, and wished not to kill the tigress, but to keep her for our combined shooting next day. We had not proceeded far, when on the other side of the nullah we saw dense clouds of dust rising, and heard a confused rushing, trampling sound, intermingled with the clashing of horns, and the snorting of a herd of angry buffaloes.
“It was the wildest sight I have ever seen in connection with animal life. The buffaloes were drawn together in the form of a crescent; their eyes glared fiercely, and as they advanced in a series of short runs, stamping with their hoofs, and angrily lashing their tails, their horns would come together with a clanging, clattering crash, and they would paw the sand, snort, and toss their heads, and behave in the most extraordinary manner.
“The cause of all this commotion was not far to seek. Directly in front, retreating slowly, with stealthy, crawling, prowling steps, and an occasional short, quick leap or bound to one or the other side, was a magnificent tigress, looking the very impersonification of baffled fury. Ever and anon she crouched down to the earth, tore it up with her claws, lashed her tail from side to side, and with lips retracted, long mustaches quivering with wrath, and hateful eyes scintillating with rage and fury, she seemed to meditate an attack upon the angry buffaloes. The serried array of clashing horns, and the ponderous bulk of theherd appeared, however, to daunt the snarling vixen; at their rush she would bound back a few paces, crouch down, growl, and be forced to move back again, before the short, blundering charge of the crowd.
“All the old cows and calves were in rear of the herd, and it was not a little comical to witness their awkward attitudes. They would stretch their ungainly necks, and shake their heads as if they did not rightly understand what was going on. Finding that if they stopped too long to indulge their curiosity, there was danger of getting separated from the fighting members of the herd, they would make a stupid, lumbering, headlong rush forward, and jostle each other in their blundering panic.
“It was a grand sight. The tigress was the embodiment of lithe savage beauty, but her features expressed the wildest baffled rage. I could have shot the striped vixen over and over again, but I wished to keep her for my friends; and I was thrilled by the excitement of such a novel scene.
“Suddenly our elephant trumpeted, and shied quickly on one side from something lying on the ground. Curling up its trunk it began backing and piping at a prodigious rate.
“‘Hallo! what’s the matter now?’ said I to Debnarain.
“‘God only knows,’ said he.
“‘A young tiger!Bagh ta butcha,’ screamed our mahout, and regardless of the elephant or our cries, he scuttled down the pad rope like a monkey down a backstay, and clutching a young dead tiger cub, threw it up to Debnarain. It was about the size of a small poodle, andhad evidently been trampled by the pursuing herd of buffaloes.
“‘There may be others,’ said the gomasta, and peering into every bush, we went slowly on. My elephant then showed decided symptoms of dislike and reluctance to approach a particular dense clump of grass.
“A sounding whack on the head, however, made her quicken her steps, and thrusting the long stalks aside, she discovered for us three blinking little cubs, brothers of the defunct, and doubtless part of the same litter. Their eyes were scarcely open, and they lay huddled together like three enormous striped kittens, and spat at us, and bristled their little mustaches much as an angry cat would do. All four were males.
“It was not long before I had them wrapped up carefully in the mahout’s blanket. Overjoyed at our good fortune, we left the excited herd still executing their singular war-dance, and the enraged tigress, robbed of her whelps, consuming her soul in baffled fury.
“We heard her roaring through the night close to camp, and on my friends’ arrival, we beat her up next morning, and she fell, pierced by three balls, in a fierce and determined charge. We came upon her across the nullah, and her mind was evidently made up to fight.”
A tiger may fail in front of a herd, but with stragglers, and there are always such, the case is not the same. He can kill individual buffaloes, or he would not be there, and this is done so quietly and expeditiously that very often the act remains for a time undiscovered. His “fore-paw,” observes Inglis, “is a most formidable weapon of attack....One blow is generally sufficient to slay the largest bullock or buffalo.” Then he reports how a tiger, charging through the skirts of a herd, “broke the backs of two of these animals, ... giving each a stroke, right and left, as he passed along.” Now it is certain that an Asiatic buffalo is quite as large and formidable an animal as the bison; and it may naturally be inferred from this, that most of these latter fare differently from the one Leveson and Burton saw fighting at the Nedeniallah Hills.
Having thus secured a supply of beef, the tiger usually withdraws and waits for night to make his meal. But if he were alone with his victim, if there were no danger of being winded and attacked by its companions, he would act differently, and might eat at once. Inglis does not tell how he became acquainted with the following details, but he states that as soon as his prey is struck down, the tiger “fastens on the throat of the animal he has felled, and invariably tries to tear open the jugular vein.” This he does instinctively, because he knows intuitively that “this is the most deadly spot in the whole body.” But the tiger’s intuitions and Inglis’s knowledge are both at fault in this particular. “When he has got hold of his victim by the throat, he lies down, holding on to the bleeding carcass, snarling and growling, and fastening and unfastening his talons.” In some instances, continues this writer, he may drink the blood, “but in many cases I know from my own observation that the blood is not drunk.” After life is extinct, these brutes “walk round the prostrate carcasses of their victims, growling and spitting like tabby cats.” If they wish to eat then, the body is neatly disembowelled,and the meal begins on the haunch. A panther or leopard would commonly commence with the inner part of the thighs, “a wolf tears open the belly and eats the intestines first,” and a hawk, and other birds of prey, pick out the eyes; but a tiger follows the course described, as a rule, and after having bolted—for he never chews his food—as much as he can hold, the remainder is dragged off and concealed, or at least this is the intention, though his design is always very imperfectly executed.
Colonel Barras, while waiting for a tiger driven by beaters, saw the beast break back upon their line, as these animals are apt to do, and with evil consequences, seeing that no power can keep Hindus together.
“I saw him rise up on his hind legs and take the head of one of them in his mouth. In an instant he dropped his victim, and made short pounces at the others, who (as may be supposed) were flying wildly in all directions. Numbers of them left the long cloths they wear round their heads sticking to the thorny bushes. These, it seemed to me, the tiger mistook for some snare, as he suddenly turned and bounded away at tremendous speed under the very tree I was in. Owing to the great pace he was going I missed him. I have since seen others miss under the same circumstances, but at the time I felt my position keenly, being under the impression that other persons invariably dropped their tigers whenever and wherever they might get a glimpse of them.
“It only remained now to follow up the brute with elephants. Owing to the fierceness of the sun, he would not be likely to travel far, or make many moves. After trackingfor about an hour, he did turn out in front of one of the elephants, and was fired at by the people in the howdah, with what success I do not remember. For a moment he pulled himself up, and seemed about to charge, but thought better of it, and was soon out of sight again. We followed him for some hours along the rocky banks of the river, visiting all the most likely nooks and corners, in hopes that he might find it impossible to travel any further over the burning rocks. Towards evening he was descried at the distance of a quarter of a mile, swimming across a deep pool that led into an extensive piece of forest. Here we deemed it advisable to leave him for the night, and organize a fresh plan for the morrow. Accordingly the next morning a beat was commenced from the opposite side of the wood, which proved successful. The tiger broke readily and was shot by one of the party. It was a very fine male, in the prime of life. At first I wondered why it was so certainly admitted to be the tiger of the day before. On asking the question, his feet were pointed out to me. They were completely raw with his long ramble over the burning rocks. It is not improbable that had he been only slightly driven, he would have travelled miles away during the night, and we might have lost him.”
As for the wounded man, whose skull, strange to say, had not been crushed, he was carefully attended to and well rewarded for his sufferings.
“An occasional accident of this sort should not be looked upon as a proof of the brutal indifference of the English in India to the lives of the suffering natives—quitethe contrary. The natives, except under European leadership, will not go out against dangerous animals. Bapoo says, ‘My cow is not killed, and besides I have obtained a charm from a holy man, by which she is made safe against tigers. Why shouldIgo out?’ On the other hand, Luximon says, ‘My cowiskilled; I shall certainly not go.’” In consequence of these reasonings, they and their cattle continue to be eaten. As Barras says, “The result is that the tigers get the better of the natives, and kill so many of them and their cattle, that I have seen many ruined villages, which have been abandoned owing to the neighborhood of these animals. It is, therefore, a very good thing for the inhabitants when a well-appointed shooting party arrives.
“One of the most curious features of tiger-shooting is the extraordinary tenacity with which both the Europeans and natives engaged in the sport adhere to certain traditions. In vain does a tiger break through all established rules before the very eyes of those engaged; the shikáris, both white and black, continue as firm as ever in their articles of faith, and, by their blind belief in the same, often lose a tiger. I propose, therefore, to mention a few of the most cherished laws, and to show in the following pages that they are in every instance fallacies.
“(1) A tiger never charges unless wounded, or in defence of its young cubs.
“(2) It never lies up for the day in hot weather in a jungle where there is no water.
“(3) It never looks upward so as to see any one in a tree.
“I have already given one instance of an unwounded tiger charging and nearly killing a beater, and I now propose to show how another was unprincipled enough to break two of the three rules at the same time.
“A few days after the events narrated in the preceding chapter, I and the four others comprising our party were duly posted across a wide nullah (dry watercourse). Gibbon was told off for a tree growing on the top of the bank. The fork into which he climbed must have been quite twelve feet from the ground, so that as I sat in my bush in the bed of the nullah he appeared almost in another world. As soon as we were all settled the beat began. Our band on this occasion was unusually good. It produced a loud and piercing discord.
“Almost immediately was heard the sound as of a horse galloping down the stony bed of the nullah. It was a tigress charging at full speed. Like a flash of lightning she had cleared all obstacles, and was in the first fork of Gibbon’s tree eight feet from the ground, and perpendicular to it. Gibbon fired down upon her, and she fell to the earth with her jaw broken, but instantly charged again to the same spot, when another sportsman hit her with an Express bullet in the back, making a fearful wound.
“The pursuit on elephants now commenced. There were three of them, and each had a line of his own to investigate. One called Bahadur Gūj was much the stanchest, and knew what it was to be clawed.
“Just as this elephant was passing a thick spot, the wounded tigress sprang on his head. There was a brief but exciting struggle. Bahadur Gūj got his enemy down,trampled it to death, and then flung its body up on to the bank of the nullah.... Fortunately for the elephant, the tiger’s jaw was broken, so that he received no injuries worth mentioning.
“The following incidents will show, I think, what a mistake it is to suppose that tigers are never found except in the near neighborhood of water during the hot months of the year. Whilst out with a party of four, in the middle of May, we beat unsuccessfully for a fine tigress that had killed a cow during the previous night. The beat was properly conducted, but no beast of prey appeared. A mile or two distant there was a very fine jungle, but it was decided that as there was no water, there could be no tiger in it. We therefore thought it a good opportunity to organize a beat on behalf of our native shikáris, in order that they might slay for themselves deer, pig, and such like animals for their own eating.
“Accordingly, we repaired to the desired locality, and scattered ourselves about without taking any of the usual precautions. Some of us helped in the beat, and some of the beaters converted themselves into shooters, and took up such positions as seemed good to them. Things were proceeding very pleasantly, when suddenly a shot was fired by one of the natives, and word was rapidly passed that he had aimed at a tiger, which had not fallen, but gone on up a ravine towards the head of the jungle. No blood marks were found, and the bullet was held to have missed. This was ultimately found to be true. But at the moment I doubted it, for the man was an excellentshot, and the tiger had come out slowly just in front of him.... At all events, the tiger was gone, and I and my friend had to do our best to find him. The elephant Bahadur Gūj was called up, and I and my companion stood up in front of the howdah, while the native who had first fired at the animal occupied a back seat with his little son.
“For a long time our search was fruitless. We worked up to the head of the jungle without finding a vestige of the enemy. On our way back my coadjutor pointed to a thick corinda bush and said, ‘That is a likely spot.’ I looked, and there was the tiger, or rather tigress, standing in the centre of it. We fired together. There was a roar, a scuffle, and a dense cloud of smoke, under cover of which the tigress disappeared, having only been seen by the small boy in the back seat. The cover consisted entirely of detached bushes, so we felt sure she could not have gone far. At last we discovered a black hole flush with the ground. This we approached cautiously, and on peering down saw the legs of a recumbent tiger. We threw stones in, but the animal never moved; and on getting a view of her head, my friend put a ball through it. Three of us now got down into the den, and with much difficulty contrived to get the beast out without injuring the skin.”
Looking around once for a wounded tiger in the Nielgherries by night, Major Leveson and his party drove the beast into a patch of jungle, “not more than fifty yards long by twenty wide. Chinneah (the head shikári) threw a couple of lighted rockets into this retreat,which evidently annoyed him, although they had not the effect of causing the animal to break; it only set up a low angry growl that lasted for some time. Two or three times I saw the bushes shake as if it were about to spring; and once I caught a hurried glimpse of its outline, and threw up my rifle, but put it down again, as I did not like to fire a chance shot with an uncertain aim. Again Chinneah’s rockets flew hissing about the tiger, and caused him to move, for B—— caught sight of him and let drive right and left. Then out he sprang with an appalling roar, and struck down poor Ali, who, notwithstanding my orders, had separated himself from the rest in order to pick up a stone to throw into the bush. His piercing death shriek rang through the night air, striking terror to every heart; and although I knew that it was too late to save him, I determined that he should be revenged, and dashed forward towards the spot where the infuriated brute was savagely growling as it shook the senseless but quivering body. No sooner did I get a glimpse of the tiger than I knew I was perceived, for with a short angry roar he left the corpse, and crouched low upon the ground, with head down, back arched, and tail lashing his heaving flanks. At this moment ... carefully aiming between the eyes which glared upon me like balls of fire, I fired—he reared up at full length, and fell back dead.
“Vengeance satisfied, I went up to poor Ali, whom I found shockingly mutilated. His death must, however, have been instantaneous, as the tiger with the first blow had shattered his skull and scattered his brains about the spot.”
The hunting tiger is not the highest development of his species. He has not much to learn, compared with a man-eater, in order to adjust himself to the requirements of life; and the gaunt, somewhat undersized, active, hardy, shy and solitary beast, pursues the tenor of his way far from the habitations of men, of whom he is wary and distrustful, chiefly on account of their strangeness.
To a cattle-lifter life presents more diversified scenes. The way in which the animal lives implies a greater complexity of conditions to which he is required to adapt himself, and a corresponding development of faculty. This kind of tiger, except under circumstances which rarely occur, is both a game-killer and beef-eater. Few districts yield a constant supply in the way of cattle, and when that fails, necessity compels the marauder to hunt almost exclusively, or take to homicide. On the one hand, these creatures have the experiences and training of their brethren belonging to the wastes; on the other, they are to some extent brought into a certain relationship with human beings, become accustomed to them, observe their actions, and are familiarized during those plundering expeditions, by which they mainly support themselves, with a variety of things which are altogether outside the ordinary experiences of wild beasts. Of the two classes, it goes without saying that the latter must be the more evolved; for it is not more certain that, other things being equal, the man who has had most training will be most capable, than it is that the same effects will follow in the case of tigers.
Those regions inhabited by hunting tigers have not failed to contribute, through the influence of their associationsand scenery, to that vague body of feeling and of imaginative impressions, which most persons carry with them concerning this suggestive animal. “Tigers,” remarks Sherwell, “are prone to haunt those crumbling works belonging to states and dynasties that have been swept away by war.” In the deserted fortress of Mahoor, says Major Bevan, they were “so abundant that a few matchlock-men, who had been kept there to guard the temple, were afraid to go occasionally to the arsenal to bring their ammunition.” The jungles and forests where game-killing tigers prowl for their prey are among those scenes in nature which no man who has appreciated their full significance ever forgets. “They who have never explored a primeval forest,” writes Leveson, “can have but a very faint impression of the mysterious effect that absence of light and intense depth of gloom ... the unbroken stillness and utter silence ... exert upon the mind.” They “create a strange feeling of awe and loneliness that depresses the spirits and appalls the hearts of those unaccustomed to wander in these solitudes.... Solitude is too insufficient a term to convey an idea of the overpowering sensation of desolation and abandonment that pervades these regions.”
Stranger, perhaps stronger than all else, is the bewildering feeling of contrast between the impressive actualities of one’s surroundings, and the spectral appearance of whatever the eye takes in. Peril may be imminent at every step, and yet all things seem unreal in that weird atmosphere in which they are seen. Animals look like the shadows of themselves. An elephant’s motionless, giganticform, looming even larger than in life, will define itself upon the sight, vanish as you gaze, and by some new effect of light, reappear in the same spot and the same position. It is like being in the enchanted forests of old romances; and such impressions can scarcely have failed to influence many whose exploits were performed amid such scenes. Leveson, in a place like this, saw the only encounter that has been described between the tiger and a bison bull.
“Whilst hunting in the jungle between the Bowani River, and the Goodaloor Pass, at the foot of the Nedeniallah Hills, my friend Burton and I witnessed a most gallantly-contested fight between a bull bison and a tiger.... Night had scarcely set in when a loud bellowing was heard, followed by an unmistakable roar that caused no little commotion amongst the horses and bullocks that were picketed round our tents. From the ominous sounds which succeeded we knew that a mortal combat was raging at no great distance from our bivouac. Having arranged for the safety of our camp, Burton and I, armed with rifles and pistols, followed closely by Chinneah and Googooloo, each carrying a couple of spare guns, sallied forth; and keeping along the bank of the river for a short distance, entered the dense cover, from which the sounds of the contest seemed to issue, by a narrow deer-run. Here we could only get along very slowly, having to separate the tangled brushwood with one hand, and hold our rifles cocked and ready with the other. We proceeded in this manner for some distance, guided by the noise of the contest, which sounded nearer and nearer, and came to an opening in the woods where we saw a huge bull bison,evidently much excited, for his eyes flashed fire, his tail was straight on end, and he was tearing up the ground with his forefeet, all the while grunting furiously. As we were all, luckily, well to leeward, the taint in the air was not likely to be winded, so I made signs to the bearers to lay down their guns, and climb into an adjacent tree; while Burton and myself, with a rifle in each hand, by dint of creeping on our hands and knees, gained a small clump of bushes on a raised bank, and not more than thirty yards distant, whence we could see all that was going on. When we first arrived, the tiger was nowhere to be seen; but from the bison’s cautious movements, I knew he could not be far off. The moon was high in the heavens, making the night as clear as day; so not a movement could escape us, although we were well concealed from view.
“Several rounds had already been fought, for the game had been going on a good twenty minutes before we came up, and the bison, besides being covered with lather about the flanks, bore several severe marks of the tiger’s claws on the face and shoulders. Whilst we were ensconcing ourselves comfortably behind the cover, with our rifles in readiness for self-defence only,—for we had no intention of interfering in the fair stand-up fight which had evidently been taking place,—a low savage growling about fifteen paces to the right attracted our attention; and crouched behind a tuft of fern, we discerned the shape of an immense tiger watching the movements of the bison, which, with his head kept constantly turned towards the danger, was alternately cropping the grass, and giving vent to hisexcited feelings every now and then by a deep, tremulous roaring, which seemed to awaken all the echoes of the surrounding woods. The tiger, whose glaring eyes were fixed upon his antagonist, now and again shifted his quarters a few paces either to the right or the left, once coming so near our ambuscade that I could almost have touched him with the muzzle of my rifle; but the wary old bull never lost sight of him for a second, and ever followed his motions with his head lowered to receive an attack. At last the tiger, which all along had been whining and growling most impatiently, stole gently forward, his belly crouching along the ground, every hair standing on end, his flanks heaving, his back arched, and his tail whisking about and lashing his sides; but before he could gather himself together for a spring which might have proved fatal, the bison, with a shriek of desperation, charged at full speed, with his head lowered and the horns pointed upward, but overshot the mark, as his antagonist adroitly shifted his ground just in time to avoid a vicious stroke from the massive horns. Then making a half circle, he sprang with the intention of alighting on the bison’s broad neck and shoulders. This the bull evaded by a dexterous twist; and before his adversary could recover himself, he again rushed at him, caught him behind the shoulders with his horns, and flung him some distance, following up to repeat the move, but the tiger slunk away to gather breath.
“Round after round of the same kind followed, allowing breathing-time between each, the tiger generally getting the worst of it, for the bull sometimes received his rush on his massive forehead and horns, and threw him a considerabledistance, bruised and breathless, although his skin seemed to be too tough for the points to penetrate. Once, however, I thought the bison’s chance was all over, for the tiger, by a lucky spring, managed to fasten on his brawny shoulder, and I could hear the crunching sound of his teeth meeting again and again in the flesh, while the claws tore the flank like an iron rake. With a maddening scream of mingled rage and pain, the bull flung himself heavily on the ground, nearly crushing his nimble adversary to death with his ponderous weight; and the tiger, breathless and reeling with exhaustion, endeavored to slink away with his tail between his legs. But no respite was given, his relentless foe pursued with roars of vengeance, and again rolled him over before he could regain his legs to make another spring. The tiger, now fairly conquered, endeavored to beat a retreat, but this the bison would not allow. He rushed at him furiously over and over again; and at last, getting him against a bank of earth, pounded him with his forehead and horns until he lay motionless, when he sprang with his whole weight upon him, striking him with the forefeet, and displaying an agility I thought incompatible with his unwieldy appearance.
“The combat, which had lasted over a couple of hours, was now over, for the tiger, which we thought might be only stunned, gave unmistakable signs of approaching dissolution. He lay gasping, his mouth half open, exposing his rough tongue and massive yellow teeth. His eyes were fixed, convulsive struggles drew up his limbs, a quiver passed over his body, and all was still. His conqueror was standing over him with heaving flanks, and crimsoned foamflying from his widely distended nostrils; but his rolling eye was becoming dim, for the life-blood was fast ebbing from a ghastly wound in the neck, and he reeled about like a drunken man, still, however, fronting his dead enemy, and keeping his horns lowered as if to charge. From time to time he bellowed with rage, but his voice became fainter, and at last subsided into a deep hollow moan. Then his mighty strength failed him, and he could not keep on his legs, which seemed to bend slowly, causing him to plunge forward. Again he made a desperate effort to recover himself, staggered a few paces, and with a surly growl of defiance, fell never to rise again; for, after a few convulsive heavings, his body became motionless, and we knew that all was over.”
How often a conflict between animals so formidable ends in the assailant’s repulse or death, we do not know, neither can we say whether bisons are habitually attacked by tigers. Lions destroy the African buffalo either singly or by taking odds; and in a personal contest, the tiger would generally have the advantage over a lion. They have often been pitted against each other, and the general result is well known to be as stated. Gunga, who belonged to the King of Oude, killed thirty lions, and destroyed another after being transferred to the zoölogical garden in London.
When the young tiger first makes his appearance among the fastnesses of forests, he is one foot long, has but little coat, although his stripes can be seen, and is blind. On the eighth or tenth day his eyes open, and by that time he has grown four inches and a half. At ninemonths the length is five feet, and at the expiration of a year he measures five feet eight inches. When two years of age the male’s length from tip to tip is about seven feet six inches, and that of the tigress seven feet. Between the second and third year they separate from their mother. While in the days of his youth thelodia baghmakes indiscriminate war upon the brute creation, commits unnecessary murders, stalks his prey instead of surprising it, and, Leveson and others assert, chases it like the cheetah. But time diminishes nervous energy, and leaves him, like all other beings, bereft of the incitements its excess engenders. Experience warns him against the consequences of temerity, and he grows lazy. Then these animals take to ambushing deer-runs and drinking places; they round up game by moving round and roaring; they practise upon the curiosity which besets theCervidæ; and partly show themselves in the jungle to tempt an axis deer to a closer inspection; they are also said to bark in imitation of the sambur stag, in order to lure a doe or some pugnacious buck, within reach of a rush.
As for the beast that takes to man-eating, what was most probably at first an accidental event, now becomes the occupation of its life. In the first place it encountered men casually, now this is done with intention. Hemuststudy the habits of his game, and that he does so, is attested by his fatal success.Adme khane wallah, the eater of men, glares upon them from every “coign of vantage”; he discriminates between individuals, classes, and occupations, he learns the ways of farmers and woodcutters, of women who wash by the stream, ofmail-carriers, and travellers on roads, of priests who serve at lonely shrines.