No regular breeding season.--Beliefs and prejudices of the natives
about tigers.--Bravery of the 'gwalla,' or cowherd caste.--Clawmarks
on trees.--Fondness for particular localities.--Tiger in Mr. F.'s
howdah.--Springing powers of tigers.--Lying close in cover.--Incident.
--Tiger shot with No. 4 shot.--Man clawed by a tiger.--Knocked its eye
out with a sickle.--Same tiger subsequently shot in same place.--Tigers
easily killed.--Instances.--Effect of shells on tiger and buffalo.--Best
weapon and bullets for tiger.--Poisoning tigers denounced.--Natives
prone to exaggerate in giving news of tiger.--Anecdote.--Beating for
tiger.--Line of elephants.--Padding dead game.--Line of seventy-six
elephants.--Captain of the hunt.--Flags for signals in the line.
--'Naka,' or scout ahead.--Usual time for tiger shooting on the
Koosee.--Firing the jungle.--The line of fire at night.--Foolish to
shoot at moving jungle.--Never shoot down the line.--Motions of
different animals in the grass.
Tigers seem to have no regular breeding season. As a rule the male and
female come together in the autumn and winter, and the young ones are
born in the spring and summer. All the young tigers I have ever heard
of have been found in March, April, and May, and so on through the
rains.
The natives have many singular beliefs and prejudices about tigers,
and they are very often averse to give the slightest information as to
their whereabouts. To a stranger they will either give no information
at all, pleading entire ignorance, or they will wilfully mislead him,
putting him on a totally wrong track. If you are well known to the
villagers, and if they have confidence in your nerve and aim, they
will eagerly tell you everything they know, and will accompany you on
your elephant, to point out the exact spot where the tiger was last
seen. In the event of a 'find' they always look for _backsheesh_, even
though your exertions may have rid their neighbourhood of an
acknowledged scourge.
The _gwalla_, or cowherd caste, seem to know the habits of the yellow
striped robber very accurately. Accompanied by their herd they will
venture into the thickest jungle, even though they know that it is
infested by one or more tigers. If any member of the herd is attacked,
it is quite common for the _gwalla_ to rush up, and by shouts and even
blows try to make the robber yield up his prey. This is no
exaggeration, but a simple fact. A cowherd attacked by a tiger has
been known to call up his herd by cries, and they have succeeded in
driving off his fierce assailant. No tiger will willingly face a herd
of buffaloes or cattle united for mutual defence. Surrounded by his
trusty herd, the _gwalla_ traverses the densest jungle and most
tiger-infested thickets without fear.
They believe that to rub the fat of the tiger on the loins, and to eat
a piece of the tongue or flesh, will cure impotency; and tiger fat,
rubbed on a painful part of the body, is an accepted specific for
rheumatic affections. It is a firmly settled belief, that the whiskers
and teeth, worn on the body, will act as a charm, making the wearer
proof against the attacks of tigers. The collar-bone too, is eagerly
coveted for the same reason.
During the rains tigers are sometimes forced, like others of the cat
tribe, to take to trees. A Mr. McI. shot two large full grown, tigers
in a tree at Gunghara, and a Baboo of my acquaintance bagged no less
than eight in trees during one rainy season at Rampoor.
Tigers generally prefer remaining near water, and drink a great deal,
the quantity of raw meat they devour being no doubt provocative of
thirst.
The marks of their claws are often seen on trees in the vicinity of
their haunts, and from this fact many ridiculous stories have got
abroad regarding their habits. It has even been regarded by some
writers as a sort of rude test, by which to arrive at an approximate
estimate of the tiger's size. A tiger can stretch himself out some two
or two and a half feet more than his measurable length. You have
doubtless often seen a domestic cat whetting its claws on the mat, or
scratching some rough substance, such as the bark of a tree; this is
often done to clean the claws, and to get rid of chipped and ragged
pieces, and it is sometimes mere playfulness. It is the same with the
tiger, the scratching on the trees is frequently done in the mere
wantonness of sport, but it is often resorted to to clear the claws
from pieces of flesh, that may have adhered to them during a meal on
some poor slaughtered bullock. These marks on the trees are a valuable
sign for the hunter, as by their appearance, whether fresh or old, he
can often tell the whereabouts of his quarry, and a good tracker will
even be able to make a rough guess at its probable size and
disposition.
Like policemen, tigers stick to certain beats; even when disturbed,
and forced to abandon a favourite spot, they frequently return to it;
and although the jungle may be wholly destroyed, old tigers retain a
partiality for the scenes of their youthful depredations; they are
often shot in the most unlikely places, where there is little or no
cover, and one would certainly never expect to find them; they migrate
with the herds, and retire to the hills during the annual floods,
always coming back to the same jungle when the rains are over.
Experienced shekarries know this trait of the tiger's character well,
and can tell you minutely the colour and general appearance of the
animals in any particular jungle; they are aware of any peculiarity,
such as lameness, scars, &c., and their observations must be very keen
indeed, and amazingly accurate, as I have never known them wrong when
they committed themselves to a positive statement.
An old planter residing at Sultanpore, close on the Nepaul border, a
noted sportsman and a crack shot, was charged on one occasion by a
large tiger; the brute sprang right off the ground on to the
elephant's head; his hind legs were completely off the ground, resting
on the elephant's chest and neck; Mr. F. retained sufficient presence
of mind to sit close down in his howdah; the tiger's forearm was
extended completely over the front bar, and so close that it touched
his hat. In this position he called out to his son who was on another
elephant close by, to fire at the tiger; he was cool enough to warn
him to take a careful aim, and not hit the elephant. His son acted
gallantly up to his instructions, and shot the tiger through the
heart, when it dropped down quite dead, to Mr. F.'s great relief.
Some sportsmen are of opinion, that the tiger when charging never
springs clear from the ground, but only rears itself on its hind legs;
this however is a mistake. I saw a tiger leap right off the ground,
and spring on to the rump of an elephant carrying young Sam S. The
elephant proved staunch, and remained quite quiet, and Sam, turning
round in his howdah, shot his assailant through the head.
I may give another incident, to shew how closely tigers will sometimes
stick to cover; they are sometimes as bad to dislodge as a quail or a
hare; they will crouch down and conceal themselves till you almost
trample on them. One day a party of the Purneah Club were out; they
had shot two fine tigers out of several that had been seen; the others
were known to have gone ahead into some jungle surrounded by water,
and easy to beat. Before proceeding further it was proposed
accordingly to have some refreshment. The _tiffin_ elephant was
directed to a tree close by, beneath whose shade the hungry sportsmen
were to plant themselves; the elephant had knelt down, one or two
boxes had actually been removed, several of the servants were clearing
away the dried grass and leaves. H.W.S. came up on the opposite side
of the tree, and was in the act of leaping off his elephant, when an
enormous tiger got up at his very feet, and before the astounded
sportsmen could handle a gun, the formidable intruder had cleared the
bushes with a bound, and disappeared in the thick jungle.
The following adventure bears me out in my remark, that tigers get
attached to, and like to remain in, one place. Mr. F. Simpson, a
thorough-going sportsman of the good old type, had been out one day in
the Koosee derahs; he had had a long and unsuccessful beat for tiger,
and had given up all hope of bagging one that day; he thought
therefore that he might as well turn his attention to more ignoble
game. Extracting his bullets, he replaced them with No. 4 shot. In a
few minutes a peacock got up in front of him, and he fired. The report
roused a very fine tiger right in front of his elephant; to make the
best of a bad bargain, he gave the retreating animal the full benefit
of his remaining charge of shot, and peppered it well. About a year
after, close to this very place, C.A.S. bagged a fine tiger. On
examination, the marks of a charge of shot were found in the flanks,
and on removing the pads of the feet, numbers of pellets of No. 4 shot
were found embedded in them. It was evidently the animal that had been
peppered a year before, and the pellets had worked their way downwards
to the feet.
On another occasion, a man came to the factory where George was then
residing, to give information of a tiger. He bore on his back numerous
bleeding scratches, ample evidence of the truth of his story. While
cutting grass in the jungle, with a blanket on his back, the day being
rainy, he had been attacked by a tiger from the rear. The blanket is
generally folded several times, and worn over the head and back. It is
a thick heavy covering, and in the first onset the tiger tore the
blanket from the man's body, which was probably the means of saving
his life. The man turned round, terribly scared, as may be imagined.
In desperation he struck at the tiger with his sickle, and according
to his own account, he succeeded in putting out one of its eyes. He
said it was a young tiger, and his bleeding wounds, and the
persistency with which he stuck to his story, impressed George with
the belief that he was telling the truth. A search for the tiger was
made. The man's blanket was found, torn to shreds, but no tiger,
although the footprints of one were plainly visible. But some months
after, near the same spot, George shot a half grown tiger with one of
its eyes gone, which had evidently been roughly torn from the socket.
This was doubtless the identical brute that had attacked the
grass-cutter.
It is sometimes wonderful how easily a large and powerful tiger may be
killed. The most vulnerable parts are the back of the head, through
the neck, and broadside on the chest. The neck is the most deadly spot
of all, and a shot behind the shoulder, or on the spine, is sure to
bring the game to bag. I have seen several shot with a single bullet
from a smooth-bore, and on one occasion, George tells me he saw a
tigress killed with a single smooth-bore bullet at over a hundred
yards. The bullet was a _ricochet_, and struck the tigress below the
chest, and travelled towards the heart, but without touching it. She
fell twenty yards from where she had been hit. Another, which on
skinning we found had been shot through the heart, with a single
smooth-bore bullet at a distance of one hundred and fifty yards,
travelled for thirty yards before falling dead. Meiselback, a
neighbour of mine, shot three tigers successively, on one occasion,
with a No. 18 Joe Manton smooth-bore. Each of the three was killed by
a single bullet, one in the head, one in the neck, and one through the
heart, the bullet entering behind the shoulder.
On the other hand, I once fired no less than six Jacob's shells into a
tiger, all behind the shoulder, before I could stop him. The shells
seemed to explode on the surface the moment they came in contact with
the body. There was a tremendous surface wound, big enough to put a
pumpkin into, but very little internal hurt. On another occasion
(April 4, 1874) during one of the most exciting and most glorious
moments of my sporting life--buffaloes charging the line in all
directions, burning jungle all around us, and bullets whistling on
every side--I fired TWELVE shells into a large bull before I killed
him. As every shell hit him, I heard the sharp detonation, and saw the
tiny puff of smoke curl outward from the ghastly wound. The poor
maddened brute would drop on his knees, stagger again to his feet,
and, game to the last, attempt to charge my elephant. I was anxious
really to test the effect of the Jacob's shell as against the solid
conical bullet, and carefully watched the result of each shot. My
weapon was a beautifully finished No. 12 smooth-bore, made expressly
to order for an officer in the Royal Artillery, from whom I bought it.
From that day I never fired another Jacob's shell.
My remarks about the tiger springing clear off the ground when
charging, are amply borne out by the experience of some of my sporting
friends. I could quote pages, but will content myself with one
extract. It is a point of some importance, as many good old sportsmen
pooh-pooh the idea, and maintain that the tiger merely stretches
himself out to his fullest length, and if he does leave the ground, it
is by a purely physical effort, pulling himself up by his claws.
My friend George writes me: 'In several cases I have known and seen
the tiger spring, and leave the ground. In one case the tiger sprang
from fully five yards off. He crouched at the distance of a few paces,
as if about to spring, and then sprang clean on to the head of Joe's
_tusker_. An eight feet nine inch tigress once got on to the head of
my elephant, which was ten feet seven inches in height. Every one
present saw her leave the ground. Once, when after a tiger in small
stubble, about six feet high, I saw one bound over a bush so clean
that I could see every bit of him.' And so on.
For long range shooting the rifle is doubtless the best weapon. The
Express is the most deadly. The smooth-bore is the gun for downright
honest sport. Shells and hollow pointed bullets are the things, as one
sportsman writes me, 'for mutilation and cowardly murder, and for
spoiling the skin.' Poison is the resource of the poacher. No
sportsman could descend so low. Grant that the tiger is a scourge, a
pest, a nuisance, a cruel and implacable foe to man and beast; pile
all the vilest epithets of your vocabulary on his head, and say that
he deserves them all, still he is what opportunity and circumstance
have made him. He is as nature fashioned him; and there are bold
spirits, and keen sights, and steady nerves enough, God wot, among our
Indian sportsmen, to cope with him on more equal and sportsmanlike
terms than by poisoning him like a mangy dog. On this point, however,
opinions differ. I do not envy the man who would prefer poisoning a
tiger to the keen delight of patiently following him up, ousting him
from cover to cover, watching his careful endeavours to elude your
search; perhaps at the end of a long and fascinating beat, feeling the
electric excitement thrill every nerve and fibre of your body, as the
magnificent robber comes bounding down at the charge, the very
embodiment of ferocity and strength, the perfection of symmetry, the
acme of agility and grace.
Natives are such notorious perverters of the truth, and so often hide
what little there may be in their communications under such floods of
Oriental hyperbole and exaggeration, that you are often disappointed
in going out on what you consider trustworthy and certain information.
They often remind me of the story of the Laird of Logan. He was riding
slowly along a country road one day, when another equestrian joined
him. Logan's eye fixed itself on a hole in the turf bank bounding the
road, and with great gravity, and in trust-inspiring accents, he said,
'I saw a _tod_ (or fox) gang in there.'
'Did you, really;' cried the new comer.
'I did,' responded the laird.
'Will you hold my horse till I get a spade,' cried the now excited
traveller.
The laird assented. Away hurried the man, and soon returned with a
spade. He set manfully to work to dig out the fox, and worked till the
perspiration streamed down his face. The laird sat stolidly looking
on, saying never a word; and as he seemed to be nearing the confines
of the hole, the poor digger redoubled his exertions. When at length
it became plain that there was no fox there, he wiped his streaming
brow, and rather crossly exclaimed, 'I'm afraid there's no tod here.'
'It would be a wonder if there was,' rejoined the laird, without the
movement of a muscle, 'it's ten years since I saw him gang in there.'
So it is sometimes with a native. He will fire your ardour, by telling
you of some enormous tiger, to be found in some jungle close by, but
when you come to enquire minutely into his story, you find that the
tiger was seen perhaps the year before last, or that it _used_ to be
there, or that somebody else had told him of its being there.
Some tigers, too, are so cunning and wary, that they will make off
long before the elephants have come near. I have seen others rise on
their hind legs just like a hare or a kangaroo, and peer over the
jungle trying to make out one's whereabouts. This is of course only in
short light jungle.
The plan we generally adopt in beating for tiger on or near the Nepaul
border, is to use a line of elephants to beat the cover. It is a fine
sight to watch the long line of stately monsters moving slowly and
steadily forward. Several howdahs tower high above the line, the
polished barrels of guns and rifles glittering in the fierce rays of
the burning and vertical sun. Some of the shooters wear huge hats made
from the light pith of the solah plant, others have long blue or white
puggrees wound round their heads in truly Oriental style. These are
very comfortable to wear, but rather trying to the sight, as they
afford no protection to the eyes. For riding they are to my mind the
most comfortable head-dress that can be worn, and they are certainly
more graceful than the stiff unsightly solah hat.
Between every two howdahs are four or five pad elephants. These beat
up all the intervening bushes, and carry the game that may be shot.
When a pig, deer, tiger, or other animal has been shot, and has
received its _coup de grace_, it is quickly bundled on to the pad, and
there secured. The elephant kneels down to receive the load, and while
game is being padded the whole line waits, till the operation is
complete, as it is bad policy to leave blanks. Where this simple
precaution is neglected, many a tiger will sneak through the opening
left by the pad elephant, and so silently and cautiously can they
steal through the dense cover, and so cunning are they and acute, that
they will take advantage of the slightest gap, and the keenest and
best trained eye will fail to detect them.
In most of our hunting parties on the Koosee, we had some twenty or
thirty elephants, and frequently six or eight howdahs. These
expeditions were very pleasant, and we lived luxuriously. For real
sport ten elephants and two or three tried comrades--not more--is much
better. With a short, easily-worked line, that can turn and double,
and follow the tiger quickly, and dog his every movement, you can get
far better sport, and bring more to bag, than with a long unwieldy
line, that takes a considerable time to turn and wheel, and in whose
onward march there is of necessity little of the silence and swiftness
which are necessary elements in successful tiger shooting.
I have been out with a line of seventy-six elephants and fourteen
howdahs. This was on 16th March 1875. It was a magnificent sight to
see the seventy-six huge brutes in the river together, splashing the
water along their heated sides to cool themselves, and sending huge
waves dashing against the crumbling banks of the rapid stream. It was
no less magnificent to see their slow stately march through the
swaying, crashing jungle. What an idea of irresistible power and
ponderous strength the huge creatures gave us, as they heaved through
the tangled brake, crushing everything in their resistless progress.
It was a sight to be remembered, but as might have been expected, we
found the jungles almost untenanted. Everything cleared out before us,
long ere the line could reach its vicinity. We only killed one tiger,
but next day we separated, the main body crossing the stream, while my
friends and myself, with only fourteen elephants, rebeat the same
jungle and bagged two.
In every hunt, one member is told off to look after the forage and
grain for the elephants. One attends to the cooking and requirements
of the table, one acts as paymaster and keeper of accounts, while the
most experienced is unanimously elected captain, and takes general
direction of every movement of the line. He decides on the plan of
operations for the day, gives each his place in the line, and for the
time, becomes an irresponsible autocrat, whose word is law, and
against whose decision there is no appeal.
Scouts are sent out during the night, and bring in reports from all
parts of the jungle in the early morning, while we are discussing
_chota baziree_, our early morning meal. If tiger is reported, or a
kill has been discovered, we form line in silence, and without noise
bear down direct on the spot. In the captain's howdah are three flags.
A blue flag flying means that only tiger or rhinoceros are to be shot
at. A red flag signifies that we are to have general firing, in fact
that we may blaze away at any game that may be afoot, and the white
flag shews us that we are on our homeward way, and then also may shoot
at anything we can get, break the line, or do whatever we choose. On
the flanks are generally posted the best shots of the party. The
captain, as a rule, keeps to the centre of the line. Frequently one
man and elephant is sent on ahead to some opening or dry water-bed, to
see that no cunning tiger sneaks away unseen. This vedette is called
_naka_. All experienced sportsmen employ a naka, and not unfrequently
where the ground is difficult, two are sent ahead. The naka is a most
important post, and the holder will often get a lucky shot at some
wary veteran trying to sneak off, and may perhaps bag the only tiger
of the day. The mere knowledge that there is an elephant on ahead,
will often keep tigers from trying to get away. They prefer to face
the known danger of the line behind, to the unknown danger in front,
and in all cases where there is a big party a naka should be sent on
ahead.
Tigers can be, and are, shot on the Koosee plains all the year round,
but the big hunts take place in the months of March, April, and May,
when the hot west winds are blowing, and when the jungle has got
considerably trampled down by the herds of cattle grazing in the
tangled wilderness of tall grass. Innumerable small paths shew where
the cattle wander backward and forward through the labyrinths of the
jungle. In the howdah we carry ample supplies of vesuvians. We light
and drop these as they blaze into the dried grass and withered leaves
as we move along, and soon a mighty wall of roaring flame behind us,
attests the presence of the destroying element. We go diagonally up
wind, and the flames and smoke thus surge and roar and curl and roll,
in dense blinding volumes, to the rear and leeward of our line. The
roaring of the flames sounds like the maddened surf of an angry sea,
dashing in thunder against an iron-bound coast. The leaping flames
mount up in fiery columns, illuminating the fleecy clouds of smoke
with an unearthly glare. The noise is deafening; at times some of the
elephants get quite nervous at the fierce roar of the flames behind,
and try to bolt across country. The fire serves two good purposes. It
burns up the old withered grass, making room for the fresh succulent
sprouts to spring, and it keeps all the game in front of the line,
driving the animals before us, as they are afraid to break back and
face the roaring-wall of flame. A seething, surging sea of flame,
several miles long, encircling the whole country in its fiery belt,
sweeping along at night with the roar of a storm-tossed sea; the
flames flickering, swelling, and leaping up in the dark night, the
fiery particles rushing along amid clouds of lurid smoke, and the
glare of the serpent-like line reddening the horizon, is one of those
magnificent spectacles that can only be witnessed at rare intervals
among the experiences of a sojourn in India. Words fail to depict its
grandeur, and the utmost skill of Doré could not render on canvas, the
weird, unearthly magnificence of a jungle fire, at the culmination of
its force and fury.
In beating, the elephants are several yards apart, and, standing in
the howdah, you can see the slightest motion of the grass before you,
unless indeed it be virgin jungle, quite untrodden, and perhaps higher
than your elephant; in such high dense cover, tigers will sometimes
lie up and allow you to go clean past them. In such a case you must
fire the jungle, and allow the blaze to beat for you. It is common for
young, over eager sportsmen, to fire at moving jungle, trusting to a
lucky chance for hitting the moving animal; this is useless waste of
powder; they fail to realize the great length of the swaying grass,
and invariably shoot over the game; the animal hears the crashing of
the bullet through the dense thicket overhead, and immediately stops,
and you lose all idea of his whereabouts. When you see an animal
moving before you in long jungle, it should be your object to follow
him slowly and patiently, till you can get a sight of him, and see
what sort of beast he is. Firing at the moving grass is worse than
useless. Keep as close behind him as you can, make signs for the other
elephants to close in; stick to your quarry, never lose sight of him
for an instant, be ready to seize the first moment, when more open
jungle, or some other favourable chance, may give you a glimpse of his
skin.
Another caution should be observed. Never fire down the line. It is
astonishing how little will divert a bullet, and a careless shot is
worse than a dozen charging tigers. If a tiger does break back, let
him get well away behind the line, and then blaze at him as hard as
you like. It is particularly unpleasant to hear a bullet come singing
and booming down the line from some excited dunderhead on the far left
or right.
A tiger slouching along in front moves pretty fast, in a silent
swinging trot; the tops of the reeds or grass sway very gently, with a
wavering, side to side motion. A pig rushes boldly through, and a deer
will cause the grass to rock violently to and fro. A buffalo or
rhinoceros is known at once by the crashing of the dry stalks, as his
huge frame plunges along; but the tiger can never be mistaken. When
that gentle, undulating, noiseless motion is once seen, be ready with
your trusty gun, and remove not your eye from the spot, for the mighty
robber of the jungle is before you.