Chapter C: J. Andersson (“The Lion and the Elephant”) remarks that “the modes (3)

In 1863 Captain Forsyth hunted panthers on the higher Narbadá, under the auspices of an old shikári, an unspeakable scoundrel, who had killed more of them than anybody else whose exploits the annals of sport with large game perpetuate. Bamanjee (the Brahman) seems to have been exceptionally honest in his dealings with the Captain, and to have given him an opportunity, rarely accorded to the hunters whom he swindled, for making observations upon the habits and character of these beasts. Forsyth relates his experiences in a way that will serve as a summary of what has been already said about _Felis pardus_. “The number of these animals in the districts around Jubbulpúr is very great. The low rocky hills, ... full of hollows and caverns, and overgrown with dense scrubby cover, afford them their favorite retreats; while numbers of antelope and hog deer, goats, sheep, pariah dogs, and pigs supply them with abundant food. A large male panther will kill not very heavy cattle; but as a rule they confine themselves to the smaller animals mentioned. They seldom reside very far from villages, prowling around them at night in search of prey, and retreating to their fastnesses before daybreak. Unlike the tiger, they care little for the neighborhood of water, even in the hot weather, drinking only at night, and generally at a distance from their midday retreat.”

The scourge that a man-eating panther becomes, and those traits which make him worse than either the lion or tiger when he has taken to preying upon human beings, have been already given at some length; the following statements, however, also by Forsyth, place the panther’s enterprise and hardihood before us very vividly:--

“In my early hunting days I fell into the mistake of most sportsmen in supposing that the panther might be hunted on foot with less caution than the tiger. On two or three occasions I nearly paid dearly for the error, and I now believe that the panther is really by far a more dangerous animal to attack. He is, in the first place, much more courageous. For, though he will generally sneak away unobserved as long as he can, if once brought to close quarters he rarely fails to charge with the utmost ferocity, fighting to the very last. He is also much more active than the tiger, making immense springs clear off the ground, which the other seldom does. He can conceal himself in the most wonderful way, his spotted hide blending with the ground, and his lithe, loose form being compressible into an inconceivably small space. Further, he is so much less in depth and stoutness than a tiger, and moves so much quicker, that he is far more difficult to hit in a vital place. He can also climb trees, which the tiger cannot do, except for a small distance up a thick, sloping trunk. A few years ago a panther thus took a sportsman out of a high perch on a tree in the Chindwárá district. And, lastly, his powers of offence are scarcely inferior to those of the tiger himself, and are amply sufficient to be the death of any man he gets hold of. When stationed at Damoh, near Jubbulpúr, with a detachment of my regiment, I shot seven panthers and leopards in less than a month, within a few miles of the station, chiefly by driving them out with beaters; all of them charged that had the power to do so, but the little cherub who watches over ‘griffins’ got us out of it without damage either to myself or the beaters. One of the smaller species [Forsyth means a leopard, which, together with Byth, Jerdon, and other naturalists, he regarded as a true panther of less dimensions than the other variety], really not more than five feet long, I believe, charged me three several times up a bank to the very muzzle of my rifles (of which I luckily had a couple), falling back each time to the shot, but not thinking of trying to escape, and died at last at my feet, with her teeth fixed in the root of a small tree.

“Another jumped on my horse, while passing through some long grass, before it was fired at at all; and after being kicked off, charged my groom and gun-carrier, who barely escaped by fleeing for their lives, leaving my only gun in possession of the leopard. I had to ride to cantonments to get another rifle, and gather together some beaters. When we returned I took up my post on a rock that overlooked the patch of grass, and the beaters had scarcely commenced their noise when the leopard went at them like an arrow. An accident would certainly have happened this time had my shots failed to stop this devil incarnate before she reached them. She had cubs in the grass, which accounted for her fury; but a tigress would have abandoned them to their fate in a similar case. The last I killed was a man-eater, that took up his post among the high crops surrounding a village, and killed and dragged in women and children who ventured out of the place. He was a panther of the largest size, and had been wounded by a shikári from a tree, ... rendering him incapable of killing game. I was a week hunting him, as he was very careful not to show himself when pursued, and at last I shot him in a cow-house into which he had ventured, and killed several head of cattle before the people had courage to shut the door.”

Among other peculiarities, says Forsyth, “their indifference to water makes it extremely difficult to bring them to book; and indeed panthers are far more generally met with by accident than secured by regular hunting. When beating with elephants they are very rarely found, considering their numbers; but they must be very frequently passed at a short distance unobserved, in this kind of hunting. In 1862, I was looking for a tigress and cubs near Khápá on the Lawá River in Bétúl. Their tracks of a few days old led into a deep fissure in the rocky banks of the river, above which I went, leaving the elephant below, and threw in stones from the edge. Some way up I saw a large panther steal out at the head and sneak across the plain. He was out of shot, and I followed on his tracks, which were clear enough for a few hundred yards, till, at the crossing of a small rocky nálá (gulch) they disappeared. I could not make it out, and was returning to the elephant, when I saw the driver making signals. He had followed me up above, and had seen the panther break back along the little nálá which led into the top of the ravine, and re-enter the latter. I then went and placed myself so as to command the top of this ravine, and sent people below to fling in stones; and presently the panther broke again in the same place, this time galloping away openly across the plain. I missed with both barrels of my rifle, but turned him over with a lucky shot from a smooth-bore at more than two hundred yards. I then went up to him on the elephant, and he made feeble attempts to rise and come at me, but he was too far gone to succeed.

“The panther will charge an elephant with the greatest ferocity. In 1863, near Jubbulpúr, a party of us were beating a bamboo cover for pigs, with a view to the sticking thereof (that is to say, riding them down and spearing them from the saddle); my elephant was with the beaters, when a shout from the latter announced that they had stumbled on a panther. They took to trees, and I got on the elephant to turn him out, while the rest exchanged their hog spears for rifles and surrounded the place. She got up before me, bounding away over the low bamboos, and I struck her on the rump with a light breech-loading gun as she disappeared. Several shots from the trees failed to stop her, and she took refuge in a very dense, thorny cover on the banks of a little stream. Twice I passed up and down without seeing the brute, but fired once into a log of wood in mistake for her, and was going along the top of the cover for the third time, when the elephant pointed down the bank with her extended trunk. We threw some stones in, but nothing moved, and at last a peon came up with a huge stone on his head, which he heaved down the bank. Next moment a yellow streak shot from the bushes, and levelling the adventurous peon, like a flash of lightning came at my elephant’s head, but just at the last spring, I broke her back with the breech-loader, and she fell under the elephant’s trunk, tearing at the earth and stones and her own body in her bloody rage.

“The method usually resorted to by old Bamanjee and other native shikáris for killing panthers and leopards, was by tying out a kid, with a line attached to a fish-hook through its ear, a pull at which makes the poor little brute continue to squeak, after it has cried itself to silence about its mother. No sentiment of humanity interferes with the devices of the mild Hindu. A dog in a pit with a basket work cover over it, and similarly attached to a line, is equally effective. I have known panthers repeatedly to take animals they have killed up into trees to devour, and once found the body of a child that had been killed by a panther in the Bétúl District, so disposed of in the fork of a tree. They are very often lost, I believe, by taking unobserved to trees. Beating them out of cover with a strong body of beaters and fireworks is, on the whole, the most successful way of hunting these cunning brutes; but it is accompanied with a good deal of risk to the beaters, as well as to the sportsman if he is over-venturesome; and it is liable to end in disappointment in most instances. My own experience is that the majority of panthers one finds, are come across more by luck than good management.

“A large panther was making himself very troublesome ... in the neighborhood of the Jubbulpúr and Mandlá road. He had killed several children in different villages, and promised, unless suppressed, to become a regular man-eater. I encamped for some days in the neighborhood of his haunts, and the very first night the villain had the impudence to kill and drag away a good-sized baggage pony out of my camp. The night being warm I was sleeping outside for the sake of coolness, and was awakened by a riving and gurgling noise close to my bed. It was too dark to see; so I pulled out the revolver, that in those uncertain times always lay under my pillow, and fired off a couple of shots to scare the intruder. Getting a light, I was relieved to find it was only the pony.” This animal did not return to its “kill,” and Captain Forsyth’s watch was in vain.

There are certain writers, William H. Drummond, and Sir William Cornwallis Harris, for example, from whose works it might be inferred that in East Africa panthers and leopards were of a quite different character from their Asiatic allies. Taking the evidence on record with regard to this continent as a whole, the discrepancy disappears, however, and _Felis pardus_ there, appears in much the same aspect as elsewhere. The animals are necessarily modified to some extent by differences implied in a change of province, but in the main they are reported by observers as exhibiting like traits, and performing much the same exploits with those that have been given.

THE JAGUAR

_Felis onca_, generally called the jaguar, and very often, in the regions he inhabits, _el tigre_, or the tiger, is a large and heavy animal; coming, in respect to its average size, between the Asiatic panther and lion. It is, perhaps, the most exclusively inter-tropical form among _Felidæ_,--or at least the larger species of that family; and although it passes beyond equatorial latitudes both to the north and south, and is found at considerable elevations where the temperature is low, this beast is essentially an inhabitant of hot countries.

[_From a photograph by Ottomar Anschütz. Copyright._]]

H. H. Smith and others look upon the black jaguar of the Brazilian highlands as a distinct species, and one whose range is different from that of the spotted animals of the Amazon valleys and basin of La Plata. W. N. Lockington (“Standard Natural History”) is one of several authorities who consider that there may be several true species of _Felis onca_, besides geographical varieties. In short, the zoölogy of this great American cat is not settled, and the records relating to its character and habits are rather scanty.

Looking at a full-grown jaguar carelessly, one might mistake it for a large and thick-set panther, with a rather short, clumsy tail, and very massive limbs. But besides that the angular ocelli on its coat--irregular black borders with an enclosed spot of the same color--are not rosettes, the _ensemble_ is scarcely the same with that of a panther, although anatomically these species are nearly identical.

The true home of the jaguar is in the great woodlands of the Amazon. “Here,” says Lockington, “he reigns supreme; the terror of the forest, as the lion is of the desert, and the tiger of the jungle; the acknowledged and dreaded lord of man and beast.” Charles Darwin found this species in the basin of the La Plata River, living in reed belts and around lake shores. Unlike the panther, jaguars cannot live without a constant supply of water. Falconer asserts that in some places these animals subsist chiefly upon fish. At all events, they are very expert in catching them, and fish even in rivers whose banks abound with game.

As a rule, however, that large rodent, the capybara, now the only living representative of an ancient family otherwise extinct, is the American tiger’s chief article of food, and Darwin reports a saying among the Indians to the effect that man has little to fear from “el tigre’s” attacks where these are plentiful. Another point of resemblance between this beast and the panther is their mutual fondness for monkeys.

Natives believe that the jaguar fascinates them. All instances which have been given of the exercise of this power seem, however, to be susceptible of a different interpretation, and naturalists generally discredit the idea that such an influence is ever exerted. Hypnotic phenomena, however, are actual facts, and it is undoubtedly premature to limit the possibility of their induction to human beings.

Apart from this matter, concerning which there is no certainty, it is a fact that the brutes in question take their prey mostly on the surface of the ground, to some extent in water, and likewise among the limbs of trees. They are indiscriminate feeders, and besides all species of land animals that inhabit their range, both wild and domesticated, they destroy vast numbers of turtles and their eggs, lizards, fish, shell-covered species, and even insects. So long as anything has blood, whether red or white, in its body, it does not come amiss to what Wood calls “the jaguar’s ravenous appetite.” This trait makes him very destructive, and in some places domestic animals have been extirpated.

The jaguar, although he principally subsists upon game, hunts men also, as might be anticipated both from his size, strength, and family traits. An almost unarmed Indian of these regions is no match for a brute like this, even when provided with the blow-gun used in those latitudes.

Being as lazy as a lion, and from his usually abundant supplies, generally in good condition, the jaguar most commonly ambushes prey. Not always, however, for T. P. Bigg-Wither reports that they have been known to follow upon the trail of companies for days, while awaiting a favorable opportunity to seize one of the party. When “el tigre” designs to make a meal of peccary, the character of that creature compels him to surprise it. This is a very bold and inveterately revengeful animal, and moreover is rarely found except in herds. An attack upon one member of the band is instantly and fiercely resented by all, so that strategy upon the jaguar’s part is essential to success.

It is not at all unusual to find people congratulating themselves upon the assumed fact that formidable brutes are unacquainted with their own strength and skill. This is one of the many mistakes made concerning lower animals.

Returning to the jaguar’s general description, one of his most eccentric propensities is the pursuit of alligators. The jaguar kills and eats these reptiles from choice; or in many instances, simply bites their tails off and lets them go. H. W. Bates found a recently-killed alligator partly eaten. Orton refers to this habit as well known, and both Smith and Wallace speak of it as a matter of common notoriety.

Like all species among the _Felidæ_, this one is nocturnal. Their “dull, deadly-looking eyes,” as Barton Premium describes them, are not adapted to excess of light. In remote and secluded places, however, and in the dark recesses of a tropical forest they prowl at all hours, and the author has met with these beasts in the full glare of a vertical sun.

When a jaguar sets out on a foraging expedition at night, he begins to roar like the lion as he leaves his lair; and again like his majesty, he keeps this up at more or less regular intervals until he actually begins to hunt. Jaguars are noisy animals at all times, says Darwin, but they are especially so upon stormy nights, when their “deep, grating roar” reverberates through the forest in a manner very impressive to those unaccustomed to the sound.

Like all animals with retractile claws, they are in the habit of sharpening them, as it is called; but it is not for the purpose of putting a point upon his talons that a jaguar draws them through the bark of trees. All the cats are given to trying how far they can reach, and all of them, both in killing game and feeding, get their nails clogged with shreds of flesh. It is to cleanse them that they scratch tree trunks, from time to time, as they go along. Darwin asserts that each animal has an especial tree to which he resorts for this purpose.

It is agreed among several authorities that a jaguar constantly strikes down, disables, and kills game with a blow of his massive forearm. At the same time, Wood, Humboldt, and Holder write as if death always ensued from dislocation of the neck. When a horse or some other large quadruped is seized, says the former, his assailant “leaps from an elevated spot upon the shoulders ... places one paw on the back of the head and another on the muzzle, and then with a single tremendous wrench breaks the neck.” So far as the act described is assumed to be of invariable occurrence many equally reliable accounts differ entirely, and the author knows from personal experience that jaguars will attack in front, make their assault on level ground, and in some instances do not attempt to kill either man or beast by forcing back the head.

Independently of other facts and considerations which bear upon this brute in its relation to man, the name by which it is known among the natives is more conclusive with regard to character than a host of witnesses. According to Burton the word _jaguar_ is composed of the Indian (_Tupi_) _ja_ we or us, and _guara_, an eater or devourer; and it may be assumed that when tribes of savages conferred such a designation as this, they had very good reason for doing so. It may be said, however, that other etymologies of the word have been given.

In the olden days of exploration, both Gonzalo Pizarro and Orellana spoke of the loss of human life from the depredations of jaguars; but, strange to relate, their successors, the accomplished missionary priests, Artiega and Acuna, have nothing to say about them in their sketch of the natural history of Northern Brazil.

Like tigers, lions, and panthers, the jaguar, no doubt, finds it easier to kill a man than almost any other animal that will afford him a full meal, and under favorable conditions he acts accordingly. Hence along the Brazilian frontier of Guiana where these beasts are very numerous, E. F. im Thurn relates that he found the forest tribes sleeping in hammocks swung high enough above the ground to be out of reach of a spring. J. W. Wells and the distinguished Waterton describe the way in which their tents were beset by jaguars. Humboldt tells how his mastiff was carried off from within his camp on the Rio Negro. Darwin mentions that “many woodcutters are killed by them on the Paraná,” and that they “have even entered vessels at night,” and Von Tschudi recounts how one broke into an Englishman’s hut, seized his boy, and bore him off into the forest.

When we examine the records of the first European travellers in those provinces infested by jaguars, their testimony with regard to its character is quite unanimous.

In the Adelantado Pascual de Andagoya’s narrative of Pedrarias Davila’s expedition he says, “there are lions and tigers”--by which all the Spanish and Portuguese writers meant pumas and jaguars--“on the Isthmus of Panama, that do much harm to the people, so that on their account the houses are built very close to one another, and are secured at night.” Father José de Acosta (“Historia natural y moral de las Indias”) explains, however, that these beasts are not equally dangerous. “The tigers are fiercer and more cruel than the lions.” Likewise it is more perilous to come in their way “because they leap forth and assail men treasonably.”

Pedro Cieza de Leon, of whom Prescott remarks that “his testimony is always good,” gives an account of the state of affairs on the road between Cali and the port of Buenaventura. Here are “many great tigers, that kill numbers of Indians and Spaniards as they go to and fro every day.” Likewise in the mountainous portions of the district, these animals were so destructive that the Indian houses, which are “rather small, and roofed with palm leaves, ... are surrounded by stout and very long palisades, so as to form a wall; and this is put up as a defence against the tigers.” So far as the author’s acquaintance with the Spanish and Portuguese relations goes, all authorities of this class agree in giving these beasts the traits that those theoretical and practical considerations mentioned respecting the temper and habits of the large carnivora would lead us to look for.

The writer never saw a full-grown animal of this kind which had been domesticated to the extent of being harmless if left at large, and never succeeded in taming one completely himself. E. George Squier (“Adventures on the Mosquito Shore”) mentions an incident in which such was the case. He was summoned to an interview with “The Mother of the Tigers,” who, under this ominous title, proved to be a modest young Indian girl, and the high priestess of one of those secret semi-religious societies that gave Alvarado so much trouble in the days of the Spanish invasion. Her retreat lay in the darkest recesses of one of those gloomy forests where there is always twilight, even at the tropical noonday. He found that Sukia was only attended by one old woman, and guarded by an immense jaguar. This beast did not like the stranger’s appearance, but made no attack, and at once passed into the house and lay down when commanded to do so.

Perhaps it is unnecessary to bring, as might readily be done, proof of what might be assumed beforehand; namely, that an animal like the jaguar is certain to attack men wherever their possession of firearms has not in the course of time taught the sagacious beast that the contest is an unequal one. It happens, however, that the explorer C. Barrington Brown (“Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana”) has given some quite explicit information concerning a point which has been rarely touched upon, that is to say the behavior of a wild beast that very probably never saw a man before, and certainly not a white man. Brown was in a country infested by jaguars, but while remaining in the peopled regions he does not say much about them. Once, however, he records the fact that he encountered an Indian whose neck was much distorted by a bite received from this animal. The man was accompanied by a friend armed with a gun when the jaguar sprang upon him, and was shot dead by his friend. Most of Brown’s explorations were made in boats, by the waterways of the Essequibo, Corentyne, and other rivers and their affluents. He penetrated into parts which were, so far as human beings are concerned, nearly or entirely uninhabited.

“On one occasion,” says this author, “when we had landed and were pursuing a herd of bush-hogs,”--peccaries, he means,--“two men were left in charge of the boat. We had not been away in the forest more than two or three minutes, when these men heard a heavy footfall on the bank above them, and looking up saw a large jaguar gazing down upon them from the very spot up which we had clambered.” In other words, neither the sense of smell, nor actual sight, taught him anything about those enemies whom he, in common with all other wild beasts, is so generally represented to fear instinctively. “They immediately pushed the boat off shore, fearing an attack from the tiger.” Afterwards his men told Brown “that this animal was one of those the Indians call ‘Masters of the herd,’ that it followed herds of swine wherever they went; and that whenever it was hungry, and found a pig at a little distance from the rest, pounced upon it, killing it with one blow of its huge paw. The squeak of the stricken one always brought down its companions to the spot, whereupon the jaguar climbed a tree for safety till the storm it had brewed was over, and the pigs left the spot; then it descended from its perch to feed on the flesh of its victim....

“In ascending that portion of the Corentyne below Tehmeri rocks, we saw a large jaguar standing on a granite rock close to the river bank, which immediately bolted into the forest as we paddled to the spot. Glancing up at the place where it had disappeared, I saw it sitting down and gazing intently at us, without showing the least sign of fear. I took aim behind the shoulder and fired a charge of large shot, which caused it to bound forward, fall and roll over. But at once regaining its feet it made off into the forest.” Although they followed the bloody trail, the animal was not seen again.

Brown had four other shots at jaguars--all of them close--and he wounded two, but never succeeded in bagging a single one. In every case observed by him there was an entire absence of that behavior which is said to be natural and instinctive. The animals he saw expressed only wonder at the sight and scent of man, as well as at the sound of his voice.

Father Acosta declares that the jaguar attacks “treasonably,” that is to say, being treacherous like all cats, and one of the laziest of animals besides, he springs upon his prey, as a rule, from an ambush, which may be above the creature seized or on a level with it, according to circumstances.

Like all large beasts of prey, these brutes kill in a variety of ways as existing conditions and the size and structure of the creature assaulted suggest,--they break its neck, tear open the blood-vessels in its throat, strike it dead with a blow from their powerful and massive forearms, crush its life out in their spring, drown it, and tear it to pieces while alive. This last is the way in which such vast numbers of the great river turtles are destroyed: they are turned upon their backs, the claws inserted beneath the breast plate, and these unfortunates are then torn asunder.

With reference to the act of overwhelming an animal, crushing it to death, or killing it by shock, Emmanuel Liais (“Climats, Géologie, Faune, du Brésil”), who gives a somewhat different etymology for the word _jaguar_ from that before mentioned, remarks that this term may be translated in a way that refers directly to its method of taking life. “_Le nom de Jaguâra peut alors se traduire en français par la périphrase: Carnassier qui écrase sa proie d’un seul bond._” This plan is, however, inapplicable to large game.

When a jaguar catches fish, either by waiting till they rise, or by attracting fruit-eating species by tapping with his tail so they think food is falling from the trees, he simply tosses them on shore, and they suffocate in the air; but with the lemantin of the Amazon, upon which he constantly preys, that would be impossible. Paul Marcoy saw the act of capture and describes it in these terms: “At the distance of twenty paces, on a bank facing us, and but a few feet in height, a jaguar of the larger species,--_Yahuaraté pacoa sororoca_,--with pale red fur, and its body beautifully marked, was crouching with fierce aspect, on its fore-paws, its ears straight, its body immovable.... The animal’s eyes, like two disks of pure gold, followed with inexorable greed the motions of a poor lemantin which was occupied in crunching the stalks of false maize and water-plantains that grew on the spot. Suddenly, as the lemantin raised its ill-shaped head above the water, the jaguar sprang on it, and burying the claws of his left paw in the neck, weighed down the muzzle with those of the right, and held it under water to prevent its breathing. The lemantin, finding itself nearly choked, made a desperate effort to break loose from its adversary, but he had no baby to deal with. The tiger was now pulled under and now lifted out of the water, according to the direction of the violent somersaults of his victim, yet still retained his deadly hold. This unequal struggle lasted some minutes, and then the convulsive movements of the lemantin began to relax, and finally ceased altogether--the poor creature was dead. Then the jaguar left the water backwards, and resting on his hind quarters, with one fore-paw for a prop, he succeeded in dragging the enormous animal up the bank with the other paw. The muzzle and neck of the lemantin were torn with gaping wounds. Our attention was so fixed and close--I say _our_ advisedly, for my men admitted that they had never seen a similar spectacle--that the jaguar, which had just given a peculiar cry, as if calling his mate or his cubs, would shortly have disappeared with his capture, had not one of the rowers broken the charm by bending his bow and sending an arrow after the cat, which, however, missed its mark and planted itself in a neighboring tree. Surprised at this aggression, the animal bounded on one side, and cast a savage glance from his round eyes--which from yellow had now become red--at the curtain of willows that concealed us. Another arrow, which also missed its object, the shouts of the oarsmen, and the epithet ‘_sua--sua_,’ double thief, which Julio cried at the top of his voice, at length caused it to move away.”

It is not from the jungle only, or the fringing reeds of streams, from dense woodlands, or the undergrowth and high grasses of those _restingas_ (open spaces amid overgrown and often submerged country), where Bates says they may be most successfully hunted with beaters, that the jaguar bounds upon his prey. He is by no means exclusively a denizen of the forest, and Romain d’Aurignac (“Trois Ans chez les Argentins”) merely expresses a commonly known fact when, speaking of the pampas, he remarks that “_les jaguars ... abondent également dans ces parages_.” On these great plains the jaguar subsists upon cattle, horses, and mules, that are to be found there in immense numbers, as well as upon those wild animals whose habits of life confine them to open places.