The leopard, if not the boldest of all the feline tribes, is at least
the best acquainted with mankind. His partiality for dogs makes him
familiar with men's villages. More than any other beast, perhaps, he
is prompt to turn at bay when wounded and "charge home." Many a man
has lost his life to a wounded leopard. Yet even a leopard is daunted
by the sound of humanity.
In 1888 a big one was seen in a large village, not far from Maulmain,
one morning. The scattered wooden houses and plentiful shrubs afforded
cover. He was merely looking for a dog, and the people said he had
repeatedly taken one unnoticed. But this morning a woman saw him and
shrieked. The other women shrieked responsive, the children screamed,
the dogs barked, and, amid the deafening uproar, the men of the
village, and some chance visitors who happened to have guns, concerted
measures, partly by dumb show, being scarcely able to make themselves
audible to each other.
As soon as the men had obtained silence on one side of the clump of
brushwood, wherein Mr Spots was waiting for the clamour to subside,
and the men began yelling on the other sides of it, the leopard
stepped cautiously into the open on the silent quarter, looking like a
detected thief, preparing to run, with his tail between his legs, like
a dog that feels he is about to be kicked and deserves it. On seeing
an unexpected man in front of him, the leopard shrank aside,
apologetically, as if abashed. The man killed it. A sense of what he
owed to the other men prevented him allowing it to escape; and so he
fired. But it was "against the grain." He felt like slaying a man who
had asked for quarter; but, after all, no quarter is ever expected or
given on either side in humanity's protracted war with dangerous cats.
In this case the leopard heard no shot until the shot was fired that
killed it. It was cowed by the cries. So we need not wonder that the
tiger, which is more sylvan in habit and less used to human noises,
can be "beaten" out of shelter by the shouting of men and boys. When
the tiger breaks out and kills a beater it is not because it has found
the heart to face the yelling crowd, but because it is desperate.
We should remember that leopards and tigers love peace as much as do
the Quakers. There is no jingo nonsense about them. They never want to
fight, and absolutely will not fight unless they have to. Their single
aim is to get their dinners, which, as Bismarck reminded a deputation,
is the first business of every living being. "Good" or "bad" depends
on the way of doing it, he might have added. The war between cats and
us is not due to their malignant hostility, but to their physiological
necessities. If we were content to let them prey upon us there would
be peace. On other terms there can be none. A compromise is
impossible. What had to be settled, when the first Hercules took up
his club, was whether the world was to be filled by men or cats. It is
now some millenniums since the ultimate issue became obvious; but the
end is not reached yet.
Of course it is not altogether an aversion to fighting that makes the
tiger seek for peace at any price when men surround him. Try for a
moment to think in the skin of a tiger. The little jungle dogs are
formidable to him, as he is an individualist, and they run in packs.
They kill the big deer before his nose, including some he has to leave
alone. But what is the union of the dogs compared to the solidarity of
men, who "have pity upon one another," as Mahomed noticed? And think
again, what a puny thing is a tiger's tooth or claw compared to a big
knife!
True it is that when a tiger finds a man unready and alone, he can
kill him as easily as a man can kill a chicken. But in the course of
ages he has acquired an instinctive horror of men, weak as they are,
such as men, in turn, have of snakes. The unknown seems infinite, to
tigers as to men. A dog has its teeth, a deer or bull its horns; but
when a crowd of men are coming at him with a noise like a cyclone, a
tiger cannot tell what to expect. So, even if you were a tiger, with a
man's intellect to illumine the aspect of things in general, you would
often feel along with it that the better part of valour is discretion.
It is not easy to think in the skin of a tiger. It is easier to
realise the effect of the sound of humanity upon a tiger's nerves by
watching him and the beaters. The matter is not one upon which there
is any difference of opinion possible. This said, nothing perhaps
could make the truth so palpable to happy stay-at-homes as a
reminiscence I recently heard from a brave European officer who has
had experience as a hunter.
For obvious reasons I will omit details that might enable others to
identify him against his will. Suffice it to say, the scene was "in
darkest Burma," and the time about the end of the nineteenth century.
"You know," said he, "the noise that the tiger makes in going through
kaing grass."
But readers in general cannot know that. So it may be explained. In
the woods the tiger glides gently, and steps unheard upon dry leaves a
man could not touch without a noise. He realises the ideal of good
children--to be seen without being heard. It is not that he likes to
be seen. He is of a retiring disposition, and prefers to be unnoticed
so much so that even if you frequent his haunts you are not likely to
see him more than once or twice in a lifetime, though you may comfort
yourself--if it is a comfort--by reflecting that he doubtless sees you
oftener. He may be a neighbour of yours all his life; as a cub, he may
be fed upon your cattle, and, as a grown-up tiger, help himself to the
same, without once showing his face or letting you hear his stealthy
step. He comes and goes like a thief in the night, and if by rarest
chance he walks by day it is on silent pads more noiseless than the
best of rubber tyres. But the kaing grass reeds in swampy parts of
Burma grow thick and high. They are seldom less than a man's height,
and sometimes so high as to overtop a man on horseback, and too thick
for a dog to get through. When the tiger is hunting there he has to
lie in wait by the sides of the paths. I hesitate to believe what is
sometimes said--that he never is noiseless in the kaing--but the
evidence is overwhelming that he often goes through it "as loudly as a
cart," say some who have heard him, as they waited for him over a
kill, or, in one instance, over a calf tied up as a bait.
"The noise is not the _same_ as a cart's, only as loud. It seems to be
unmistakable if once you have heard it," said the hunter, whose
experience is to be told. "There is a crackling swish--swish, as he
crumples up the reeds at every stride. Think of my feelings when I
heard it again coming at me as I was walking back to camp along the
narrow footpath, with the reeds towering above me, as if shutting out
all help, to hide you and drown your voice. Oh, my God!" The man was
speaking years afterwards, and shuddered still. "It made me feel
queer, I tell you," he went on. "I was paralysed till I remembered
what to do. Then didn't I howl, 'Thank God!' and yell! and swear!
Somehow you don't recall, at such a time, what you say at church. The
tiger might have digested me before I could have repeated a prayer.
But every particle of profanity, English, Burmese and Hindustani, that
ever was in my head came out then with a howl. I didn't care what it
was if it made a noise."
The curious listener, on history intent, tried to refresh his memory
by leading questions, but he positively blushed at the recollection,
and was as shy as a girl. He proceeded:
"I kept it up, you know--I had to, although I heard the sound draw
back a little. It's no joke to have to bluff a tiger in the kaing
grass and in the dark, when you cannot see but know he can, and may
have his eye upon you. I never stopped the noise. I felt he might
spring upon me if it slacked for a second. And when I could not think
of any other oath I struck up singing...." And, in short, he emerged
from the darkness into the flickering glare of the camp-fire, yelling
"Rule, Brittania!" much louder than he ever sang before.
X