Part 16

“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 as a 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 second shot 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 cowardice of 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 are ex parte statements, 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 other parts 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 Annámullay forest 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 of this 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 specimens fourteen 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 the death 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 to stop 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 the little 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 the herd 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.