In the class of carnivorous animals, the lion stands foremost, and
he is immediately followed by the tiger, who, possessing all the bad
qualities of the former, is a stranger to his good ones. To pride,
courage, and strength, the lion adds dignity, clemency, and generosity,
while the tiger is ferocious without provocation and cruel without
necessity. Thus it is throughout all nature where rank proceeds from
the superiority of strength. The first class, sole master of all, are
less tyrannical than their immediate inferiors, who, denied unlimited
authority, abuse those powers which they possess; thus the tiger is
more to be dreaded than the lion. The latter often forgets that he is
the sovereign, or strongest of animals; with an even pace he traverses
the plains and forests; man he attacks not unless provoked, nor animals
but when goaded by hunger. The tiger, on the contrary, though glutted
with carnage, has still an insatiate thirst for blood; his rancour has
no intervals. With indiscriminate fury he tears in pieces every animal
he comes near, and destroys with the same ferocity a fresh animal as
he had done the first. Thus he is the scourge of every country he
inhabits; and of the appearance of man or his weapons, he is fearless.
He will destroy whole flocks of domestic animals if he meets with them,
and all the wild animals that come in his way. He attacks the young
elephant and rhinoceros, and will sometimes brave the lion himself.
The form of the body usually corresponds with the nature and
disposition. The noble air of the lion, the height of his limbs in
exact proportion to the length of his body, his large thick mane, which
covers his shoulders and shades his face, his determined aspect, and
solemn pace, seem to announce the dignity and majestic intrepidity of
his nature. The tiger has a body too long, limbs disproportionally
short, naked head, and haggard eyes; strong characteristics of
desperate malice and insatiable cruelty. He has no instinct but an
uniform rage, a blind fury, so undistinguishing that he not unoften
devours his own progeny, and even tears the dam in pieces if she offers
to defend them. Would he were to gratify his thirst for blood to its
utmost, and by destroying them at their birth extinguish the whole race
of monsters which he produces!
Happy is it for other animals that the species of tiger is not
numerous, and that it is chiefly confined to the warmest provinces
of the East. They are found in Malabar, Siam, Bengal, and in all the
countries inhabited by the elephant and rhinoceros. It is, indeed,
said, that they accompany the latter for the purpose of eating their
dung, which serves to purge them. Be this as it may, they are often
seen together at the sides of lakes and rivers, where they are probably
compelled to go by thirst, having often occasion for water to cool that
fervor they so constantly endure. It is also a convenient situation to
surprise his victims, since the heat of the climate compels all animals
to seek for water several times a day; here he chooses his prey, or
rather multiplies his massacres, for having killed one animal, he
often proceeds to the destruction of others, tearing open their bodies,
and swallowing their blood by long draughts; for which their thirst
seems never to be appeased.
When, however, he has killed a large animal, as a horse, or buffalo,
he does not devour it on the spot, for fear of being disturbed, but
drags it off to the forest, which he does with such ease, that the
swiftness of his course seems scarcely retarded by the enormous load
which he trails after him. From this circumstance we might judge of his
strength, but we shall have a more just idea of it by considering his
bodily dimensions. Some travellers have compared him for size to the
horse, others to the buffalo, and others merely say he is larger than
the lion; but we have accounts more recent, which deserve the utmost
confidence. I have been assured by M. de la Lande-Magon that he saw a
tiger in the East-Indies fifteen feet long; allowing that he includes
the tail, and granting four feet for that, the body would still be
more than ten. It is true that the skin preserved in the Royal Cabinet
of France is not more than seven feet from the tip of the nose to the
insertion of the tail; but this tiger had been taken very young, and
was afterwards always confined in a very narrow apartment, where the
want of exercise, and space to range in, restraint and, perhaps, not
having proper nourishment, not only its life might have been shortened,
but the growth of its body prevented. From the dissection of animals of
every species that have been reared in houses or court-yards, we find
that their bodies and members for want of exercise, never attain their
natural dimensions, and that the organs which are not used as those of
generation, are so little expanded as to be scarcely perceivable.
The difference of climate alone is capable of producing the same
effects as confinement and want of exercise. None of the animals of
hot countries produce in cold ones, even though well fed, and at
full liberty; and as reproduction is a natural consequence of full
nutrition, it is evident that when the former does not operate the
latter must be incomplete; and that, in such animals, cold of itself
is sufficient to restrain the powers of the internal mould, and
to diminish the growth, since it destroys the active faculties of
reproduction. It is not, therefore, surprising that the tiger above
alluded to should not have acquired its natural growth; yet from a bare
view of its stuffed skin, and an examination of its skeleton, we may
form an idea of its formidable strength as an animal. Upon the bones
of the legs there are inequalities which denote muscular ligatures
stronger than those of the lion. These bones are also to the full as
strong, though shorter; and, as already intimated, the height of the
tiger's legs bear no proportion to the length of his body. Thus that
velocity which Pliny ascribes to him and which the word _tiger_ seems
to imply, ought not to be understood of his ordinary movements, or the
celerity of his continued course; for it is evident, that as his legs
are short and he can neither walk nor run so fast as those animals
which have them proportionally longer; but this prodigious swiftness,
may with great propriety, be applied to the extraordinary bounds he
is capable of making without any particular effort, for if we suppose
him to have the same strength and agility in proportion with the cat,
which he greatly resembles in conformation, and which in an instant
will leap several feet, we must allow that the bounds of a tiger, whose
body is ten times as large, must be immense. It is not, therefore,
the quickness of his running, but of his leaping that Pliny meant to
denote, and which from the impossibility of evading, when he has made a
spring, still renders him more formidable.
The tiger is, perhaps, the only animal whose spirit cannot be subdued.
Neither force nor restraint, violence nor flattery, can prevail, in the
least, on his stubborn Nature. He is equally indignant at the gentle
and harsh usage of his keeper; and time instead of mollifying his
disposition, only serves to increase his fierceness and malignity. With
equal wrath he snaps at the hand that feeds as that which chastises
him. He roars at the sight of every object which lives, and seems to
consider all as his proper prey; he seems to devour beforehand with a
look, menacing it with the grinding of his teeth, and, regardless of
his chains, makes efforts to dart upon it, as if to shew his malignity
when incapable of exerting his force.
To complete the idea of the strength of this terrible animal we shall
quote Father Tachard's account of a combat between a tiger and three
elephants, at Siam, of which he was an eye-witness; he says, "a lofty
palisade of bamboo cane was built, about a hundred feet square, into
which inclosure three elephants were introduced, for the purpose of
fighting a tiger. Their heads, and part of their trunks, were covered
with a kind of armour like a mask. As soon as we arrived at the place
a tiger was brought forth, of a size much larger than any we had seen
before; he was not at first let loose, but held by two cords, so that
he could not make a spring; one of the elephants approached and gave
him three or four blows on the back with his trunk, with such force as
to beat him to the ground, where he lay for some time without motion,
as if he had been dead, although this first attack had greatly abated
his fury, he was no sooner untied, and at liberty, than he gave a loud
roar, and made a spring at the elephant's trunk, which was stretched
out to strike him; but the elephant drew up his trunk with great
dexterity, received the tiger upon his tusks, and tossed him up into
the air. This so discouraged him that he no more ventured to approach
the elephant, but made several turns round the palisade, making several
efforts to spring at the spectators. Shortly after a second, and then
a third elephant was set against him, each of which gave him such
blows that he once more lay for dead, and they certainly would have
killed him had not an end been put to the combat." From this account
we may form some idea of the strength and ferocity of the tiger; for
this animal, though young, and not arrived at his full growth, though
reduced to captivity, and held by cords, yet he was so formidable to
three such enormous foes, that it was thought necessary to protect
those parts of their bodies which were not defended by impenetrable
skin.
The tiger, of which an anatomical description was made by the
Jesuits at China, and communicated by Father Gouie to the Academy of
Sciences, seemed to be the true species,[E] as does also that which
the Portuguese have distinguished by the name of Royal Tiger. Dellon
expressly says, in his Travels, that tigers abound more in Malabar than
in any other part of the East Indies; that their species are numerous,
but that the largest, which is as big as a horse, and called by the
Portuguese the Royal Tiger, is very rare. To all appearance, then, the
Royal Tiger is not a different species; he is found in the East Indies
only; and, notwithstanding what has been said by Brisson, and others,
is an utter stranger at Brasil. I am even inclined to think that the
real tiger is peculiar to Asia, and the inland parts of the south of
Africa; for though the generality of travellers, who have frequented
the African coasts, speak of tigers as very common, yet it is very
plain, from their own accounts of them, that they are either leopards,
panthers, or ounces. Dr. Shaw says, that the lion and panther hold the
first rank at Tunis and Algiers, and that in those parts of Barbary the
tiger is an animal unknown. This observation seems founded in truth,
for they were Indian, and not African, ambassadors, who presented
Augustus, while at Samos, the first tiger the Romans had ever seen; and
it was also from the Indies that Heliogabalus procured those tigers,
with which, in order to represent the god Bacchus, he proposed that his
car should be drawn.
[Footnote E: This tiger was streaked, and had been slain, with four
others, in the field, by the Emperor, it weighed 265lbs; but one of
them weighed 400; when dissected, one-third of its stomach was full of
worms, and yet it could not be said the animal had begun to putrify.
_Hist. Acad._ 1669.]
Thus the species of the tiger has always been more rare and less
diffused than that of the lion. The female, like the lioness, however,
produces four or five cubs at a time. She is fierce at all times, but,
upon her young being in danger, her fury becomes excessive. She then
braves every danger to secure them, and will pursue the plunderers of
them with such ferocity, that they are often obliged to drop one to
secure the rest; this she takes up and conveys to the nearest cover,
and then renews the pursuit, and will follow them to the very gates of
towns, or to the ships in which they may have taken refuge; and when
she has no longer hopes recovering her young, she expresses her agony
by the most dismal howls of despair.
The tiger testifies his anger in the same manner as the lion; he moves
the skin of his face, shews his teeth, and roars in a frightful manner;
but the tone of his voice is very different; and some travellers
have compared it to the hoarse croak of certain large birds; and the
ancients expressed it by saying, _Tigrides indomitæ raucant, rugiuntque
Leones_.
The skins of these animals are much esteemed, particularly in China;
the Mandarins cover their seats and sedans with them, and also their
cushions and pillows in winter. In Europe, though scarce, they are of
no great value; those of the panther and leopard being held in much
greater estimation. The skin is the only advantage, trifling as it
is, which man can derive from this dreadful animal. It has been said
that his sweat is poisonous, and that the hair of his whiskers is more
dangerous than an envenomed arrow; but the real mischiefs he does when
alive are sufficient, without giving imaginary ones to parts of his
body when dead; for certain it is, the Indians eat the flesh of the
tiger, and that they neither find it disagreeable nor unwholesome, and
if the hair of his whiskers, taken in the form of a pill, do destroy,
it is that being hard and sharp it produces the same effect in the
stomach as a number of small needles would.