There is one thing, of course, that would never do: it would never do to write about India without saying something about lions, tigers, and snakes. Last of all, therefore, let me come to this topic.
I didn't see any tigers, let me say frankly, except those in cages--though there was one in Calcutta which had slain men and women before they caught him, and whose titanic fury as he lunged against his cage-bars, gnashing at the men before him, I shall never forget. A jackal howled at my room-door in Jeypore one night; between Jeypore and Bombay monkeys {259} were as thick as rabbits were in the old county where I was reared; in Delhi only lack of time prevented me from getting interested in a leopard hunt not many miles away; en route to Darjeeling I saw a wild elephant staked out in the woods near where he had evidently been caught; and near Khera Kalan I saw wild deer leaping with their matchless grace across the level plains.
"In my district," one missionary told me, "five or six people a month are killed by tigers and panthers and even more by snakes. One panther carried off a man from my kitchen. We found his body half-eaten in the jungle. It is customary when a body is found in this condition for hunters to gather around it and await the return of the tiger or panther. He will come back when hungry, and there is no other way so sure for getting a man-eater."
As for snakes, I may mention that when I spent the night with a friend in Madura I was shown a place near the house where a deadly cobra had been seen (his bite kills in twenty minutes), while upon retiring I was given the comforting assurance that it was not safe to put my foot on the floor at night without having a light in the room!
As I rode out with Dr. J. P. Jones, of Pasamaila, he pointed to a grassy mound near the roadside and said.
"See that grave over there? There's rather an interesting story connected with it which I'll tell you. One day about four years ago three snake-charmers came to my house, and as I had an American friend and his son with me, I decided for the boy's sake to have them try their art. Only two of the men had flutes, but one went into my garden and one took up his post on another side of the house, and began to play. It wasn't long before one called out, 'Cobra!' and sure enough there was the snake, which he captured; but on coming back he declared that he had been bitten. In fact, he showed a bruise, but I knew that snake-charmers counterfeit these bites, so I would not believe him. Then the other charmer also cried {260} 'Cobra!' and captured another snake. They showed me the fangs of each serpent, and I gave them four annas. 1 also offered them four annas more if they would kill the serpents; but of course they would not. 'Man kill cobra, cobra kill man,' is one of their sayings. And so they left, but the man who captured the first snake hadn't gone twenty steps before he fell in convulsions and died. He had really been bitten, and that is his grave which you see there."
Madura, India.
{261}
XXVI
WHAT THE ORIENT MAY TEACH US