The tiger’s habits are essentially nocturnal, and almost aquatic. His favourite haunts are the banks of rivers and lakes, not only because he may there pounce upon the herbivora which come to drink, but because he can there satisfy himself with a banquet of fish. To this he is as partial as any European epicure, and in angling his skill and dexterity are not unworthy of an Izaak Walton. He is the “complete angler” of the carnivorous world! He swims admirably, and in pursuit of his prey never hesitates at the most tremendous “header,” so that the Arnee Buffaloes, which traverse immense distances by yielding themselves to the swift river-currents, have more cause to dread his attacks than those of the crocodiles.
Buffon has calumniated the tiger by accusing him of cowardice, while, as we have seen, he has not less grossly flattered the lion by representing him as the perfect type of intrepidity. During the day the tiger, after having supped freely, sleeps in his den; he avoids man, and when aroused by the hunters, his first movement is one of flight. But by night or day, if he be an hungered, no obstacle arrests, no peril daunts him; and he pounces upon man as he would upon any other prey. He penetrates into isolated habitations; breaks into the villages, and sometimes even into the towns; seizes the domestic animals in their very stables; men even within the shelter of their own houses; and sometimes devours his spoil upon the spot; sometimes, if he fears pursuit, drags it off to his secret lair.
At Goa, in a butcher’s stall, was slain a tiger which had fallen asleep there after gorging himself with food; and in the vicinity of that once famous, but now degraded city, a cross marks the spot where a Portuguese officer, marching at the head of his men, was seized before their eyes by a tiger, and carried off before they could make the slightest effort to save him.
Tigers are found in India, in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, at Borneo, at Java, and at Sumatra. Civilization has hunted them out of the Celestial Empire, but they are met with in Tartary, even in extremely cold latitudes. The tigers of the North a beneficent Nature has furnished with much longer hair than their congeners of the Tropical zone, and they seem to form a distinct variety of the species. Wherever the tiger exists, war à l’outrance is declared between man and him! It is a vendetta which has been handed down from the remotest antiquity, and is as bitter now as in any past generation. Every year hundreds of persons fall victims to his appetite and his prowess; every year hundreds of his race are shot down by the relentless sportsman, or ensnared and killed by the peasants, whose cattle and whose lives he threatens.
By the Malays and the half-savage Indians who dwell among the Indo-Chinese jungles, he is hunted in the same way that the African negroes hunt the lion and the leopard. When the presence of one of these scourges becomes known in a district, they place some dainty bait on the bank of the river where he drinks and plants himself every night, and they form an ambush among the thickets, taking care to mark the direction of the wind. It is not long before the tiger directs his steps towards the enticing booty, and the hunters’ arrows or musket-balls stretch him dead, in most cases, before he can seize it.
A vast amount of pompous preparation attaches to the tiger-hunt of India. It is a sumptuous expedition, commanded by some distinguished chief—an European officer, a native prince, or a stranger of rank—in which each person has his allotted station and particular duties. Usually the hunters are mounted on elephants, so that the tiger cannot reach them on the back of the colossus, without being arrested by the trunk of the latter or his formidable tusks. Each sportsman provides himself with three or four rifles, besides revolvers and cutlasses. Formerly the Hindu rajahs made use in this chase of arrows and lances, but now they greatly prefer the European weapons. The expedition is never an impromptu affair. It is always organized against an enemy whose presence has been discovered in the district, and whose den is pretty well known. The march commences at sunrise, that the beast may be surprised while enjoying his siesta, after the fatigues and the plunder of the night. Suddenly awaking, says Mr. Stocqueler,[126] he bounds out of the jungle, and is saluted by a discharge which often proves sufficient; but sometimes the animal is safe and sound, or only wounded; then he furiously springs upon the first elephant within his reach. If the hunter has not time to plant a ball in his chest or head, the position of the mahout, or driver, is very critical; for, placed on the elephant’s neck, he has no other defence than the sharp iron-pointed stick which he uses to guide his colossal steed. Fortunately the hunters are arrayed in a compact mass, and a few well-directed shots terminate the struggle.
The most favourable districts for tiger-hunting, continues Mr. Stocqueler, are those of Goruckpore, on the frontiers of Nepaul. Sir Roger Martin relates that in this quarter once reigned a tiger of such ferocity, and so greedy of human blood, that he was the terror of all the “country-side.” Once he broke open, in full day-light, the cabin-door of a Taroo; but the native dealt him such a lusty blow on the head with his hatchet that he took to flight, and ever afterwards preserved the mark of the wound, which caused him to be easily recognized, and dreaded all the more. Sir Roger resolved to free the country from this plague; he took the field like a gallant soldier, but slew eight-and-forty tigers before he fell in with the Balafré of ill renown, who defended himself gallantly, and proved no easy victim. Abbye-Singh, rajah of Omorah, one of the oldest hunters of the country, slew, it is said, to his own hand more than five hundred tigers; a fact which illustrates their numerousness in the Terac, Nepaul, and Goruckpore. Despite the activity and address of the hunters, they would never succeed in purging the country; but civilization and clearances of the ground are driving the wild beasts inch by inch towards the north, where the hardy amateurs of “sport” must now go in quest of them.
Among the Felidæ of the Old World peculiar to Tropical Asia, I must cite the Reinaoudahan, distinguished by his woolly and tufted tail, from whence he has received the name of the “Fox-tailed Tiger,” and the Guépard, or “Maned Leopard,” “Hunting Leopard,” and “Cheetah.” I am inclined to believe that these two varieties really signify one animal; the Gueparda jubata of naturalists. “Intermediate in size and shape between the leopard and the hound,” says Burnett, “he is slenderer in his body, more elevated on his legs, and less flattened on the fore part of his head than the former, while he is deficient in the peculiarly graceful form, both of head and body, which characterizes the latter. His tail is entirely that of a rat; and his limbs, although more elongated than in any other species of that group, seem to be better fitted for strong muscular exertion than for active and long-continued speed.” His anatomical structure and general habits are those of the Felidæ, but the fur is crisper. The general ground-colour is a bright yellowish-brown above, lighter on the sides, and nearly white beneath. On the back, sides, and limbs he is marked with numerous black spots, which on the tail are so closely set together that they appear like rings. The cheetah is easily tamed, and trained to the chase; for which purpose, like our staghounds, he is bred and employed in Persia and India.