To have the opportunity of hunting a tiger--on an elephant too--which by
a stroke of luck fell to me, is to experience the un-English character
of India at its fullest. Almost everything else could be reproduced
elsewhere--the palaces, the bazaars, the caravans, the mosques and
temples with their worshippers--but not the jungle, the Himalayas, the
vast swamps through which our elephants waded up to the Plimsoll, the
almost too painful ecstasies of the pursuit of an eater of man.
The master of the chase, who has many tigers to his name, was Sir
Harcourt Butler, whose hospitality is famous, so large and warm is it,
and so minute, and it was because he was not satisfied that the ordinary
diversions of the "Lucknow Week" were sufficient for his guests, that
he impulsively arranged a day's swamp-deer shooting on the borders
of Nepaul. The time was short, or of elephants there would have been
seventy or more; as it was, we were apologised to (there were only about
six of us) for the poverty of the supply, a mere five and twenty being
obtainable. But to these eyes, which had never seen more than six
elephants at once, and those in the captivity either of a zoo or a
circus, a row of five and twenty was astounding. They were waiting for
us on the plain, at a spot distant some score of miles by car, through
improvised roads, from the station, whither an all-night railway
journey had borne us. The name of the station, if I ever knew it, I have
forgotten: there was no room in my heated brain for such trifles; but I
have forgotten nothing else.
It was after an hour and a half's drive in the cool and spicy early
morning air--between the fluttering rags on canes which told the drivers
how to steer--that we came suddenly in sight of some distant tents and
beside them an immense long dark inexplicable mass which through the
haze seemed now and then to move. As we drew nearer, this mass was
discerned to be a row of elephants assembled in line ready to salute the
Governor. The effect was more impressive and more Eastern than anything
I had seen. Grotesque too--for some had painted faces and gilded toes,
and not a few surveyed me with an expression in which the comic spirit
was too noticeable. Six or seven had howdahs, the rest blankets: those
with howdahs being for the party and its leader, Bam Bahadur, a noted
shikaree; and the others to carry provisions and bring back the spoil.
On the neck of each sat an impassive mahout.
To one to whom the pen is mightier than the gun and whose half a
century's bag contains only a few rabbits, a hedgehog and a moorhen,
it is no inconsiderable ordeal to be handed a repeating rifle and some
dozens of cartridges and be told that that is your elephant--the big one
there, with the red ochre on its forehead. To be on an elephant in
the jungle without the responsibilities of a lethal weapon would be
sufficient thrill for one day: but to be expected also to deal out death
was too much. In the company of others, however, one can do anything;
and I gradually ascended to the top, not, as the accomplished hunters
did, by placing a foot on the trunk and being swung heavenwards, but
painfully, on a ladder; by my side being a very keen Indian youth,
the son of a minor chieftain, who spoke English perfectly and was to
instruct me in Nimrod's lore.
And so the procession started, and for a while discomfort set acutely
in, for the movement of a howdah is short and jerky, and it takes some
time both to adjust oneself to it and to lose the feeling that the
elephant sooner or later--and probably sooner--must trip and fall. But
the glory of the morning, the urgency of our progress, the novelty and
sublimity of the means of transport, the strangeness of the scene, and
my companion's speculations on the day's promise, overcame any personal
want of ease and I forgot myself in the universal. Our destination was
a series of marshes some six miles away, where the gonds--or
swamp-deer--were usually found, and we were divided up, some elephants,
of which mine was one, taking the left wing, with instructions on
reaching a certain spot to wait there for the deer who would move off in
that direction; others taking the right wing; and others beating up the
middle.
We began with a trial of nervous stamina--for a river far down in its
bed below us almost immediately occurred, and this had to be crossed.
I abandoned all hope as the elephant descended the bank almost, as it
seemed, perpendicularly, and plunged into the water with an enormous
splash. But after he had squeeged through, extricating himself with a
gigantic wrench, the ground was level for a long while, and there was
time to look around and recollect one's fatalism. Far ahead in a blue
mist were the Himalayas. All about were unending fields, with here
and there white cattle grazing. Cranes stretched their necks above the
grass; now and then a herd of blackbuck (which were below our hunting
ambitions) scampered away; the sky was full of wild-duck and other
water-fowl.
Of the hunting of the gond I should have something to say had not a
diversion occurred which relegated that lively and elusive creature to
an obscure place in the background. We had finished the beat, and most
of us had emerged from the swamp to higher ground where an open space,
or maidan, corresponding to a drive in an English preserve, but on the
grand scale, divided it from the jungle--all our thoughts being set upon
lunch--when suddenly across this open space passed a blur of yellow and
black only a few yards from the nearest elephant. It was so unexpected
and so quick that even the trained eyes of my companion were uncertain.
"Did you see?" he asked me in a voice of hushed and wondering awe.
"Could that have been a tiger?" I could not say, but I understood his
excitement. For the tiger is the king of Indian carnivorae, the most
desired of all game. Hunters date their lives by them: such and such
a thing happened not on the anniversary of their wedding day; not when
their boy went to Balliol; not when they received the K.C.I.E.; but in
the year that they shot this or that man-eater.
That a tiger had really chanced upon us we soon ascertained. Also that
it had been hit by the rifle on the first elephant and had disappeared
into the jungle, which consisted hereabouts of a grass some twenty feet
high, bleached by the sun.
A Council of War followed, and we were led by Bam Bahadur on a
rounding-up manoeuvre. According to his judgment the tiger would remain
just inside the cover, and our duty was therefore to make a wide detour
and then advance in as solid a semicircle as possible upon him and force
him again into the open, where the hunter who had inflicted the first
wound was to remain stationed. Accordingly all the rest of us entered
the jungle in single file, our elephants treading down the grass with
their great irresistible feet or wrenching it away with their invincible
trunks. It was now that the shikaree was feeling the elephant shortage.
Had there been seventy-five instead of only twenty-five, he said, all
would be well: he could then form a cordon such as no tiger might
break through. For lack of these others, when the time came to turn and
advance upon our prey he caused fires to be lighted here and there
where the gaps were widest, so that we forged onwards not only to
the accompaniment of the shrill cries of the mahouts and the noise of
plunging and overwhelming elephants, but to the fierce roar and crackle
of burning stalks.
And thus, after an hour in this bewildering tangle, with the universe
filled with sound and strangeness, and the scent of wood smoke mingling
with the heat of the air, and the lust of the chase in our veins, we
drew to the spot where the animal was guessed to be hiding, and knew
that the guess was true by the demeanour of the elephants. Real danger
had suddenly entered into the adventure; and they showed it. A wounded
tiger at bay can do desperate things, and some of the elephants now
refused to budge forward any more, or complied only with terrified
screams. Some of the unarmed mahouts were also reluctant, and shouted
their fears. But the shikaree was inexorable. There the tiger was, and
we must drive it out.
Closer and closer we drew, until every elephant's flank was pressing
against its neighbour, the outside ones being each at the edge of
the open space; in the middle of which was the twenty-fifth with its
vigilant rider standing tense with his rifle to his shoulder. The noise
was now deafening. Every one was uttering something, either to scare
the tiger or to encourage the elephants or his neighbour or possibly
himself; while now and then from the depths of the grass ahead of us
came an outraged growl, with more than a suggestion of contempt in it
for such unsportsmanship as could array twenty-five elephants, half a
hundred men and a dozen rifles against one inoffensive wild beast.
And then suddenly the grass waved, there was a rustle and rush and a
snarl of furious rage, and once again a blur of yellow and black crossed
the open space. Six or more reports rang out, and to my dying day I
shall remember, with mixed feelings, that one of these reports was the
result of pressure on a trigger applied by a finger belonging to me.
That the tiger was hit again--by other bullets than mine--was certain,
but instead of falling it disappeared into the jungle on the other side
of the maidan, and again we were destined to employ enclosing tactics.
It was now intensely hot, but nobody minded; and we were an hour and a
half late for lunch, but nobody minded: the chase was all! The phrase
"out for blood" had taken on its literal primitive meaning.
The second rounding-up was less simple than the first, because the tiger
had more choice of hiding places; but again our shikaree displayed his
wonderful intuition, and in about an hour we had ringed the creature
in. That this was to be the end was evident from the electrical
purposefulness which animated the old hands. The experienced shots were
carefully disposed, and my own peace of mind was not increased by the
warning "If the tiger leaps on your elephant, don't shoot"--the point
being that novices can be very wild with their rifles under such
conditions. As the question "What shall I do instead?" was lost in the
tumult, the latter stages of this momentous drama were seen by these
eyes less steadily and less whole than I could have wished. But I saw
the tiger spring, growling, at an elephant removed some four yards from
mine, and I saw it driven back by a shot from one of the native hunters.
And then when, after another period of anxious expectancy, it emerged
again from the undergrowth, and sprang towards our host, I saw him put
two bullets into it almost instantaneously; and the beautiful obstinate
creature fell, never to rise again.