Chapter C: B. Brown, speaking of the causes, whatever these may be, which (1)

prevent the increase of jaguars, remarks that “they have no enemies.” This is true in so far as there is no single creature except man in those provinces through which they range that willingly comes into collision with them. No doubt the jaguar frequently meets with a violent death, however, which is not inflicted by human agency. In one case that is certain; the great ant-eater, or ant-bear, has been known to kill him. Wallace and others vouch for the truth of this, and there is nothing intrinsically improbable in the statement that an animal so large, so powerful, and so formidably armed with claws which are more effective than those of the jaguar in every way, might be able to cling to its enemy long enough to inflict mortal wounds. When attacked by a tiger, the ant-bear turns upon his back and uses his talons with deadly effect. It is said that both parties in such an engagement are apt to perish. The jaguar cannot disengage himself, and the ant-eater dies under the fangs of his adversary.

Those qualities which this creature exhibits in procuring food--the varied styles of attack and modes of destruction it makes use of--entitle the American tiger to be considered as among the first of the whole group of beasts of prey. But there is little doubt that some things are attributed to him through that admiration and reverence he excites in the aborigines, which are without foundation. It is said, for instance, that jaguars mimic the cries of many animals, and thus beguile them within their reach. Of those creatures upon which jaguars prey most constantly, however, a number only call at certain seasons, others are practically voiceless, and some, as monkeys in general, are not to be deluded in this manner.

Priests, naturalists, and geographers, whose special pursuits occupied them fully, have chiefly written of the jaguar’s provinces; so that the strong light which is cast upon the character and habits of wild beasts by narratives of the chase, is almost entirely wanting. J. W. Wells (“Three Thousand Miles through Brazil”) says, speaking of hunting jaguars with dogs, what the author knows to be true; namely, that animals employed in this way, and in fact the whole canine family in those latitudes where these animals are found, stand in mortal fear of them. He admits, however, that the ordinary Indian dog will not keep upon a tiger’s trail without constant encouragement, and that they never close with them. After having been barked at, one can hardly say chased, for a certain distance, this lazy, short-winded brute gets into some large tree and tries to conceal himself, while the curs yelp around it until their noise brings the huntsmen to the spot. That is the _theory_ of this proceeding, but practically it does not work, and few jaguars are killed in this manner. Following up a tiger with dogs just in front--for they will not, as a rule, keep upon the trail by themselves--does well enough to talk about; but when the place where this is to be done is a tropical forest, it will be found impossible to put in practice. If the beast were not disposed to come to bay, it might easily get through mazes impenetrable to men, and go its way along paths by which its pursuers could not follow. There is a breed called “tiger dogs” in Mexico and Central America, but the author has never seen them at work, and also knows that the _tigreros_, or professional tiger-hunters of those parts, kill most of their game without such aid.

Jaguars are constantly seen abroad by day in remote regions; but from the reports of native hunters, and on the ground of personal observation, the author is inclined to believe that their roar is seldom heard except at night. Waterton speaks of it as an “awfully fine” sound, and says that “it echoed among the hills like distant thunder.” Some travellers describe it as a deep, hoarse, rapid repetition of the syllables _pa-pa_; and Brown, referring to the calls of two jaguars he heard on the Berbice River, thought their “low, deep tones,” which “made the air quiver and vibrate, ... had a grand sound, with a true, noble ring in it.” The writer never detected anything like a “ring” in it; on the contrary, the ordinary intonation is markedly flat, like that of the panther’s and tiger’s ordinary cry. A jaguar can roar, however, and often does so with violence: under all modulations his tones convey the impression of great power.

The question how far jaguars hunt by scent, and how far by sight, could not probably be answered, both senses being constantly employed. T. P. Bigg-Withers relates that one of them trailed him “all day waiting for a favorable opportunity” to attack, and that a Botocudo Indian was finally seized, but escaped with some comparatively trifling injuries. This pursuit was carried on no doubt chiefly by scent, although the animal had been seen more than once. Major Leveson (“Sport in Many Lands”) makes a statement in connection with shooting from machans to the effect that elevated positions are favorable to the sportsman because wild beasts “never look up.” He excepts leopards, it is true, but the fact is that all _Felidæ_, leaving out lions and tigers, which are too heavy and large to climb, use their eyes in every direction, and in prowling for food through forests, scrutinize the trees where their prey is often found, as closely as they do surrounding jungle and open spaces. Those natives who live among tigers on this continent do not at all events think themselves safe in trees, since E. F. im Thurn and others explain that they not only swing their hammocks out of reach among branches, but build fires around the stems to prevent them from being ascended. In such a case the jaguar would probably act as he does when a monkey gets out to the end of an isolated limb that will not bear his weight--that is to say, spring upon the prey, and come to the ground with it.

When a lion or tiger receives a shot, it is very often replied to by a roar, and this whether the animal attacks in return or bounds away. A jaguar, however, generally bears his wounds without any outcry, and if he intends to fight, does so, like the panther, at once. The writer has neither seen nor heard that these animals make use of those stratagems that tigers constantly, and lions frequently, adopt for the purpose of intimidating their assailants and causing them to retreat. It would appear that jaguars do not commonly make feigned assaults, but generally charge in earnest, with lightning-like rapidity, and desperate determination. The writer, speaking from experience, is inclined to think that these animals act in this way as constantly as the panther. There may be, however, numerous exceptions to this behavior; the opinion expressed is not offered as if it were final, and the data upon which it is based are extremely imperfect. More than that, it should be acknowledged with regard to any facts stated, that they only represent this, or any other animal’s average behavior. There can be no doubt that wild beasts will sometimes do anything and everything which is not positively impossible.

Whether the current opinion that black jaguars are more ferocious than those of the spotted variety be true, the author is not able to say. Among _tigreros_ this is believed to be the case; but that kind of animal is rarer than the others, attracts more attention, and being undoubtedly dangerous, naturally gathers round it certain superstitions with which the minds of this class of men become impregnated. Natives, in general, do not appear to make any particular distinction between the varieties, and such records as we possess place them very much upon a par, with regard to the habits and characteristics that have been spoken of.

The jaguar’s strength is very great. These beasts are well known to “carry off,” as it is called, the bodies of horses, etc., that have been killed. They swim broad rivers also, and are said, like the royal tiger, to fight effectively while in the water. Wood quotes Dr. Holder to the effect that on one occasion a jaguar destroyed a horse, dragged it to the bank of a large stream, swam across with his prey, and finally conveyed it into the forest. The writer in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” refers to the same story, but besides these authorities, this kind of an exploit has not been recorded by any one.

Darwin states that the jaguar prowling at night is much annoyed by foxes, that attend his movements and keep up a constant barking. It is well known that jackals follow or accompany lions under like circumstances, and Darwin speaks of this parallel association as a “curious coincidence.” But the fox is in this case an interloper like the other, an unwelcome hanger-on in expectation of offal, that betrays the jaguar’s presence when he, usually a noisy animal, has cause to be quiet.

It is singular that a creature so noteworthy, and one so frequently mentioned, should remain so imperfectly known in many important particulars relating to its natural history, habits, and character. Dr. Carpenter (“Zoölogy”) remarks that it “may be regarded as the panther of America,” and many traits which favor this likeness have been given. It remains to say, however, that while zoölogists express themselves in guarded terms with respect to species of _Felis onca_, and the natives discriminate half a dozen among the spotted kind alone; while Liais describes “_le jaguar noir_” as “a third species,” and Azara (“Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay”) writes of a yellowish-white variety as a fourth specific form, the black jaguar, in all probability, only adds another to the many resemblances that liken this beast to the panther. Black or dark-brown cubs have not, as in the case of _Felis pardus_, been found, so far as the writer knows, in one litter with those marked with spots; but there is reason to believe that they occur in this manner.

Two cubs are born together as a rule, although, as happens with other species of this family, the average number is sometimes exceeded. Of the young jaguar’s first essays in life very little is known. Whether its father takes part in the whelp’s education, as a lion does, or is on the contrary a destroyer of his male offspring, like the tiger; how long parental care continues, and in fact all details relating to its period of infancy, remain obscure. If one inquires about these matters from natives, they entertain him with romances, legends, and folk-lore tales. It was a subject for comment among the early Spanish writers that so few of these animals were killed by Indians. In his “Brief Narrative of the Most Remarkable Things that Samuel Champlain observed in the Western Indies,” we find a mention of some jaguar skins that had been bartered by natives, referred to as rarities. Now, as many or more come annually from Buenos Ayres alone as were once procured in the same time throughout the Amazon valleys. Notices of jaguars being taken in traps are occasionally found in books, but detailed descriptions of the process of catching them the author has not met with. Some of the tribes possess efficient weapons of their kind--bows, strong enough, as Cieza de Leon asserts, “to send an arrow through a horse, or the knight who rides it.” These Indians are in the habit likewise of poisoning their arrow-heads. Cieza gives an account of how, after much trouble and persuasion, he induced the aborigines at Carthagena and Santa Martha to show him their mode of preparing poison. His relation, however, is not very instructive. Humboldt and Bonpland (“Voyage, etc., Relation Historique”) give “_curare_” as the active principle of those mixtures made by Amazonian tribes. These poisons contain, both in South America and all over the world where they are used, matters which are more or less inert, and have been introduced upon purely magical principles. E. F. im Thurn found the effective constituent used in Guiana to be “Strychnos-Urari, Yakki, or Arimaru--_i.e._, _S. toxifera_, _S. Schomburgkii_, _S. cogens_.” Both he and Sir R. Schomburgh speak of other ingredients--bark, roots, peppers, snake venom--compounded with the more active principle. Waterton gives much the same account of the toxic agent used by means of the bow or blow-gun, and of course there is no doubt that a jaguar inoculated with enough _curare_ would die.

As for foreigners, their reliance has always been upon firearms, ever since the first arquebuses were introduced into Spanish America by the _conquistadores_; and nothing less efficient is likely to avail against an animal that Audubon and Bachman say “compares in size with the Asiatic tiger,” and is his “equal in fierceness.”

THE TIGER

A tiger to 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.

[_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 the wide 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 has its 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 tigers climb? 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 open grass 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 both _saw_ the 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 great springing 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 Shakespear to 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 been advanced elsewhere. This will be a _duróra_ against 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 crumbling _cedghas_, 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 the _pishash_, 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 a small 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 although they 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 of _Gwallas_ bringing 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 ferocious temper, 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 the neighborhood 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 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.