There was the cage with the tiger's head through a hole that it was trying to make larger. Fortunately the cage had been strengthened by the ship's carpenter, otherwise he would have broken out and escaped before I could have been notified. By that time the docks were lined with people. The story had spread that there was a lighter in the harbor, filled with wild animals that had broken out of their cages and were fighting and killing one another and those that could escape would jump into the harbor and make for the shore. Then some one called Police Headquarters and four European officers came down to the dock with repeaters.
Ali and I dropped into the lighter, calling to the natives to pass the boards, nails and hammers, and assuming that there was no danger, we took each an end of a board and carrying it to the top of the cage passed it over until it covered the hole the tiger had his head out of. As Ali and I held the board my men nailed it and then another, so soon we had him fairly well secured; that is, he was in the cage again, snarling, biting and scratching. Calling to the owner of the lighter to come aboard with his men and row his lighter to the docks, we went to work and nailed board after board against and over all weak spots. There was no need to tell the boatmen to hurry; they never rowed faster. Arriving at the docks, and after telling the inspector just what had happened, we got the cage on a bullock cart and soon had the tiger safe at my animal house. Three weeks later I shipped him aboard in a good strong cage, in charge of the captain, but as the steamer was steaming up the Yarra river into Melbourne, the tiger died. An autopsy showed he died of a fractured skull, and later I got the full particulars.
It seemed that when the tiger first attempted to break out of his cage on board the steamer and the carpenter was ordered to get some boards and cover the hole he had been tearing, as the head showed against the opening the carpenter struck it with his hammer. The deer and smaller animals became terrified, and in their endeavor to escape, the deer's legs got through the slats in the crates; they broke their legs and had to be killed. This I was told later by Captain Edwards, who said it all happened within a few minutes, Mr. La Souef running about like a madman, begging this and that, getting in the way of everybody, but no one paying any attention to him, and what with the excitement among the passengers, the roaring of the tigers, barking of the bears, chatter of monkeys and crying of the smaller cats, and the frantic efforts of the deer to break through the crates, he was only adding to the confusion and disorder, until Captain Edwards ordered the water hose brought into play to quiet the animals. He told the carpenter to get some boards and nail up the opening the tiger had made, then having a sling put about the cage with the tiger snarling and biting and tearing at the opening it had started, but now covered by the planks, swung it over the side of the ship and there it hung. The captain then had the cages taken off the hatch and placed against the side of the steamer, telling Mr. La Souef that if he did not keep quiet he would have the whole shipment put over the side and dumped into the harbor.
That was the story Captain Edwards told me on his return trip to Singapore, and he laughed heartily over the way he said Mr. La Souef was hopping about in his pajamas.
My bill against the Society for services, paying for the lighter the tiger was put into from the steamer, labor, recaging, feeding for twenty-one days, and enough food for eighteen to twenty-one days' voyage to Melbourne seemed to Mr. La Souef an overcharge and my bill of £50 all out of proportion; as the tiger was a gift from the Sultan of Johore and not purchased. I insisted and drew on him for that amount, at the same time resigning as agent for his society, telling him that although he was an older man, he had still to learn the art of caging, recaging and shipping animals, not receiving them, and that had he not insisted on having things done his own way with cheap material, and had left it to me, what happened could not have happened, as barely one-third of his shipment landed alive.
By the time I had disposed of the last of my elephants, I was so sick with the fever that I could not leave my bed. I was dangerously ill and I began to realize that I should be lucky if I escaped with my life.
Mr. Lambert, who had been my friend ever since I landed at Singapore to enter the animal business, engaged passage for me on a steamer bound for Europe and took charge of the affairs of my animal house in Orchard Road. When it was time to go to the steamer, my Chinese coolie boy carried me. He is the only Chinese I have ever seen cry; the tears rolled down his cheeks as he carried me up the gangplank and to my cabin, for he thought that he should never see me again. I rather thought so myself, but I figured that if they didn't drop me into the Red Sea, which is the last resting-place of so many people who have stayed too long in the tropics, I should recover and live to return.
Ali and the coolie waited faithfully for me during the next year, while I traveled in Europe and America, recuperating and gathering new commissions for animals. And, when I came back, they were on the dock to welcome me.
Though my health was much improved by the voyage I did not feel able to resume the active business of collecting, and so I concentrated my efforts upon my animal house and made it the largest place of its kind. I had a monopoly of the business. Mahommed Ariff, who had a large number of native collectors working for him, did much of his dealing through me, and I had no difficulty in disposing of all the animals brought in from the jungles by our various agents. My largest market was Australia, where I could sell the animals f.o.b. Singapore without any of the risk of transportation. Also, I made shipments to Hagenbeck, of Germany, and Cross, of Liverpool. Because of the high import duty, I sent comparatively few of my animals to the United States.
John Anderson, who was European adviser to the King of Siam and who had been created a Siamese nobleman, sent for me and offered me a commission that kept me busy for the next five years. The King of Siam was in the habit of making presents of wild animals to foreign rulers, and it became my work to select the animals and supervise all details of shipment. I was sent to interview the Minister of the Interior, H. H. Prince Damerong, who gave me a permit to travel wherever I pleased in Siam and to force labor. In Siam, I directed many hunts, especially for tuskers to be used in the teak forests. The driving was done entirely during the daytime, and on elephants, instead of on foot, as in Treagganu. The fever had left me in bad condition, and so I did not take an active part in the work.