No. 7
The Chinese have one superstition amongst many in regard to tigers. They believe that when a person is killed by a tiger his "hantu," or ghost, becomes the slave of the beast and attends upon it; that the spirit acts the part of a jackal, as it were, and leads the tiger to his prey; and so thoroughly subservient does the ghost become to his tigerish master, that he not infrequently brings the tiger to the presence of his wife and family, and calmly sees them devoured before his ghostly face.
A very ingenious tiger trap was invented by Mr. Frank Shaw, of Caledonia sugar estate, in Province Wellesley, which is worth describing. It was constructed at the foot of a small hill, about a mile away from the estate, where there was a considerable area of secondary jungle and gigantic bracken fern, a favourite resort of tigers. A trench, about four or five feet wide, was opened in the sloping ground for a distance of ten or twelve feet; stout stakes were driven in the trench close to the sides, projecting some three or four feet above the ground, for about two-thirds the length of the trench; the remaining one-third at the upper end was converted into a strong cage, or pen. This pen communicated with the other part of the trench by an opening in which a gate in two flaps was fitted; a heavy cover, weighing ten or twelve cwt, of round logs was made to fit the open part of the trench, and so arranged in an inclined position, and connected by triggers with the two flaps, that any attempt to open the latter released the upper end of the heavy cover and allowed it to fall down in the trench. A couple of goats were tied at the far end of the pen as a bait, and were kept there constantly, food being taken to them by a convict coolie. After the trap had been set for some time, the coolie who fed the goats came running to the house one day with the news that a tiger was caught in the trap. Of course every one set out immediately to secure the animal. The tiger had evidently tried to push in between the two flaps to get at the goats: this released the triggers, and the jerk and movement of the cover had evidently alarmed the animal, who tried to back out; but the weight and force of the falling cover on its back had pressed the beast down flat on the ground and rendered him powerless. The difficulty now was to dispatch the tiger. Only its hind quarters could be seen; and a revolver shot was fired into the body. After a while the cover was raised a little, and a bullet in the brain finished the work. The cover was then entirely removed, and the carcase taken out of the trap; the fore and hind feet were tied together, and it was slung on a pole in the usual way, eight Kling convict coolies lifted the load and started for the sugar mills. They, however, soon got tired. Half a dozen more convicts, who were at work on the road, were then called in to assist, and at last they reached their journey's end.
On arrival at the sugar mills it was skinned, the skin becoming the property of the manager, and the natives disposed of the flesh. The animal proved to be a tigress, and evidently had young cubs, as she had a quantity of milk. This the Chinese coolies were very eager to secure, as it is by them considered to be a valuable medicine. We never heard whether any more tigers were caught in this trap.
The ordinary method, however, adopted for catching tigers is by means of pits, which are dug from twelve to fifteen feet in depth, and somewhat pyramidal in form. Sometimes pointed stakes are fixed in the bottom of the pit. The mouth is covered over with light brushwood, and when convenient, a tree is felled and laid a few feet from it across the tiger's track, so that the animal in leaping off the tree adds impetus to his own weight in falling into the trap.
The trouble of digging these pits is not so slight as might be supposed, as the construction of a pit in the proper manner fully occupies a couple of convicts a fortnight, besides the risk of being interrupted in their labour by the tiger happening to encounter them, and, naturally enough, on finding the work they were engaged upon, testifying his displeasure at the treachery they were meditating against him by making a meal of them.
An Indian sportsman wrote to the Singapore Free Press, at the time when so many Chinese were being destroyed at Singapore, saying:—
"I have been accustomed to tiger hunting in India, but the same mode could not be adopted here, the jungle being of a different character. Indeed, the only plan which is likely to be attended with success is by setting traps; and it is to be regretted that the local Government did not long since take some pains to prove this to the cultivators. Had this been done, many lives might have been spared." The Chinese were evidently delighted at the interest shown by the European gentlemen on the last occasion, and it is to be hoped that they will exert themselves to rid the island of tigers by this means.
While the ravages of tigers were destructive of human life on land, crocodiles were almost equally as mischievous on the coast and in the rivers, and many Chinese and other natives fell a prey to their voracity. Sometimes bathers were attacked; at other times fishermen, shrimp catchers, and oyster divers were carried off or attacked by them. Some crocodiles, like some tigers, have a peculiar partiality to human flesh, and often display remarkable ingenuity in gratifying their appetites. Regular man-eater crocodiles existed in some of the rivers in the Straits Settlements, notably in the rivers in Province Wellesley; but many were found also in the rivers in Singapore and Malacca, as well as on the sea coast. Some of these man-eaters were very bold, and would attack natives in their canoes, sometimes getting under the canoe and upsetting it in order to devour the occupants. Cases have been known of persons being snatched out of boats. A case of this kind happened in the Prye River, in Province Wellesley. The supervisor in charge of the public works was proceeding in a ferry boat with some convicts to repair the boundary pillar, situated some distance up the river, when suddenly a splash was heard, and his convict orderly, who was squatting in the bow of the sampan, or boat, uttering a cry, stood up, at the same time pointing to the stern of the boat. Upon looking round, a Chinaman, who had been seated in the stern of the boat, was found to be missing. A crocodile had, as it were, shot up out of the water, and, seizing the Chinaman by the waist, had drawn him down into the river, and nothing more was seen of them at the time. Shortly afterwards, a canoe with a Malay man and his wife in it was upset near the same spot by a crocodile, and both of them disappeared. A little later a Kling, who had been in the habit of diving for mud oysters near Qualla Prye Ferry for many years, and had repeatedly been cautioned about his danger in doing so, was missed, and it was ascertained that he had been seen diving for oysters as usual, and had suddenly disappeared, and had not been seen to come up again.
This sort of thing went on for some time, and the crocodiles could not be caught. At last the convicts stationed at Prye town convict lines succeeded in capturing a large crocodile, and this is how they managed it. They prepared a bait by tying a strong hook underneath the body of a pariah dog. One end of a piece of light iron chain[17] was fastened to this hook; the other end was fastened to a log of very light wood as a buoy. They then went in a boat to that part of the river where the greater number of casualties had occurred. Here they drifted about, at the same time pinching the dog's ears and otherwise tormenting him to make him yelp. After watching the surface of the water for some time, they descried the V mark on the water indicating the approach of a crocodile; then, throwing the dog and buoy overboard, they pulled away for some distance to watch the result.. They saw the crocodile rapidly approaching the dog, who was swimming for his life. Suddenly there was a howl, and the dog disappeared. Then they watched the buoy, which would sometimes disappear under the water and then rise again to the surface; and in this manner they traced the crocodile, and followed him into a small creek, where he crawled on shore; and there they dispatched him with musket balls. This crocodile measured fourteen feet from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, and was said to be the largest specimen captured at that time, but they have been known to reach from eighteen to twenty feet in length. Upon opening him a human leg and a pair of Chinaman's trousers were discovered, and it was concluded that this was one of the man-eaters.
As an illustration of the effect of shock upon the human system at the sight of wild beasts, we may mention a case of a Malay fisherman who was shrimping on the bar at the mouth of the Krian River (Province Wellesley), when a crocodile approached him from behind and seized him by the thigh. The Malay drew his parang and hacked away at the creature's nose until he let go. Some convicts stationed at Nebong Tubal and a Malay police peon saw what was happening and put off in a boat to his assistance. They rescued the poor fellow, and the police conveyed him at once by boat to the hospital at Butterworth, where his wounds, which were not very serious, were attended to; but the shock to the nervous system was so great that the man lost his reason, and would constantly leave his cot and walk down the hospital ward, moving his hands up and down, as if in the act of shrimping. He died shortly after. A similar case of shock, and a well-known story in the Straits Settlements, occurred in Province Wellesley, but this was from a tiger. A Roman Catholic priest was returning to his house after breakfasting with a planter at Alma, and when passing through some tall "lalang" grass a tiger suddenly sprang out into the path a few yards in front of him. The priest, with great presence of mind, suddenly opened his Chinese umbrella in the face of the tiger; the animal gave a leap round to one side, and the priest repeated the umbrella movement. The tiger then gave another leap round to the other side, and the umbrella action was again performed. This was renewed till the tiger, who evidently was not hungry, and had taken alarm, made a disappointed growl and bounded away into the high lalang grass, and the priest hastened on his way home. On reaching his house he took a cold bath, to brace up his nerves as he said; but the next day he was confined to his bed, and died a fortnight after the event, due entirely, it was said, to the shock that he had sustained.
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