It is a good plan to reward all the mahouts engaged after a successful hunt, and the douceur should be bestowed on the spot, or at latest the same evening on return to camp; any mahout misconducting himself of course forfeits the reward. A wounded tiger rarely goes far before lying up, and there is really less chance of a close line missing him than an extended one, as with the latter he may crouch and be passed over.
Ringing tigers with a large number of elephants, as practised in the Nepal Terai, is merely a variation of the ordinary method, and is thus described by Sir E. Durand:
The usual method is to send men ahead the day before, to tie up buffaloes in all the likely places round the place selected for camp, then beat up the jungle with a long line of three or four hundred elephants. If a kill is found, the flanks of the line gradually get forward and wheel inwards, and on a tiger being seen the flanks sweep round as rapidly as possible and form a ring round the patch of jungle the tiger is supposed to be in. If the tiger breaks out, fast elephants are sent in pursuit at once to head him and try to detain him till a fresh ring can be formed. On one occasion, when a kill had been found, both flanks of the line of elephants had gradually been creeping forward till they were almost at right angles to the centre, which still kept steadily advancing. Suddenly, although apparently no news had been passed up, a sort of electric current seemed to run through the line; then bugles sounded right and left, and the movement became hurried. The Maharajah (Bir Shumshir of Nepal) and I then stopped to mount our howdah elephants (as we had hitherto been riding pads), and, advancing on them, found ourselves outside a ready-formed ring of elephants, some two hundred yards in diameter, encircling a lovely glade in the forest, damp and cool, with tall green reeds and scattered trees. A tiger had been viewed, and the question now was, whether he was inside the ring or not. Orders were now given for the ring to close very slowly and steadily, till it had contracted to a circle of about a hundred yards, and the elephants were in some places standing two deep. A halt was now made to complete the formation; gaps had to be filled up here and there, and big tuskers sent round to any weak points where a number of small elephants had got together, to give them confidence in case of a charge. The Maharajah and I then entered the ring, and took up a position on our howdah elephants, between where we thought the tiger was lying hid and the heaviest cover. I have seen several tigers break the ring and escape for the time when this precaution has not been observed. Three big tuskers, which had accompanied us to rouse the tiger, then began moving about very quietly, lifting up a tangle of grass here, shaking a bush there; for tigers in these rings lie very close, the elephants invariably making a masterly retreat immediately pending the result of each special inquiry. Suddenly, not fifty paces from us, a lovely tigress with a glitter of gold on her flanks appeared, standing listening and motionless. As we had detected no movement she must have been crouching in the short grass and risen to her feet. We usually took it in turn to fire first, and as it was the Maharajah’s shot, and our elephants were standing side by side, I leant over my howdah and touched his arm. He fired hurriedly, and with a whoop of anger the lady answered the shot and sprang into a thick bed of high reeds. Thinking she was hit, we went round and posted ourselves again between the reeds and the line of elephants on the far side. We had hardly settled ourselves when there was a deliberate rush, beginning some thirty yards from us, and the charge came straight and true. When within three yards of the tusks of the Maharajah’s elephant she met her fate, and rolled over and over like a rabbit, almost between the lowered tusks of the elephant, with a bullet through the head, and never moved again. The Maharajah’s elephant, usually impassive and unhysterical, had actually been so far shaken by the decided nature of the charge that he had moved and forced his rider to sit down just at the critical moment. The noise of the charge and the shot roused up her mate, a heavy, long tiger, who gave me a chance as he walked quietly between two patches of cover about sixty yards off, and I dropped him with an Express bullet through the shoulder. Now began a performance that I never like, and for which the only excuse is the fear—a very real one—that if the howdah elephants get mauled they no longer remain absolutely staunch and reliable. The game is, that when a tiger is wounded in thick cover, the big tuskers are sent in to move him. It is often a very funny sight as the tiger goes for them and they find pressing business on the other side of the ring, whilst the careful way they hunt for him or break down a tree to fall near him and stir him, and then clear out, is quite a study. The mischief is that they are often caught, and on this occasion three of them were caught by the tiger, one after the other. The tiger once was swinging under a big tusker’s head and getting his hind leg up; for a moment we thought he would pull the elephant down, but the latter managed to shake him off. The Maharajah and I then went in and killed the tiger before he had time to get in a fair charge at us.
On some occasions we have had as many as three, four, or even five tigers in one ring, and the excitement is of course proportionate. Then, though a purist would object that the whole thing is not real sport, it is most interesting from beginning to end: the careful search for the tiger, always an excitement in itself, the ringing, the doubt whether you have him inside or not, his break, perhaps, before or after the ring is formed, and the mad rush of shouting mahouts and crashing elephants to head him and surround him again; the lesser life that goes whirling up overhead when the tuskers search the ground—peacock, jungle-fowl, partridge—or the blundering gallop round the ring of a frightened boar, the rush of terrified hogdeer or chital; and perhaps, at last, a circus performance on the part of the tiger himself, who will gallop round the ring, his tail whirling like that of an angry cat, trying the circle here and there with a hoarse, grunting charge, which is met by a volley of abuse and cudgels flung by the mahouts, and by shrill trumpetings on the part of the elephants, backing with fright. All this tends to make a Nepalese tiger ring an interesting and an exciting show, even before the tiger charges the howdah elephants, which he seems to recognise at once as the real enemies he has to fear.
The second way of hunting tigers by beating them out is that generally practised in Central India, Bombay, and Madras; here, though a few elephants may be employed as they are in Central India, their chief use is for following up wounded animals, and not for obtaining the first shots. The circumstances of tiger hunting in these two districts are entirely different.
Instead of the seas of high grass in which tigers are found in the Terai, the usual beats in Central and Southern India are densely wooded ravines, often with precipitous banks. The modes of hunting vary slightly in different districts, but the method perfected by the Central India Horse parties is the one generally adopted. It is as follows: a line of country for the party is decided upon, and the camp is preceded by three or four pairs of shikaris, who practically form a line of scouts ten or twelve miles ahead of the camp. These men visit all the known tiger nullahs, and on obtaining information from the villagers tie up young male buffaloes (the cheapest animals that can be bought, as they are of little use except to train as pack animals, and even then are not as good as bullocks for the purpose) as baits in all the likely spots within reach of the village; the baits are visited next morning, and reports of kills sent in to headquarters. The head of the party, after receiving the reports from all the country round, is then able to decide on his plan of operations, selects one or more beats for the day’s work, and orders the remainder of the shikaris to keep on tying up. The shikaris of the beat selected assemble the beaters, sixty or a hundred men being engaged according to the ground. Operations begin about noon, when the tigers are pretty sure to be lying up. The guns, usually four in number, as there is rarely room for more, draw lots for their trees (this is generally done for each beat), and take up their positions as quietly as possible. Each gun is accompanied by his gun-carrier, and is provided with a leather bottle of water and a stout leather cushion two feet square, with eyelet-holes at the corners and ropes to sling it.
The cushion is lashed up in the tree so that the sportsman’s left shoulder is towards the beat; loops of rope are arranged as stirrups to prevent an attack of pins and needles in his legs, and another loop should be passed loosely round his body and fastened to the trunk or to a strong bough, so that he can lean well over without fear of falling; the small boughs that would interfere with his shooting are cut away as noiselessly as possible with a green-wood saw. The gun-carrier is sent to another tree, about a hundred yards in rear; the sportsman takes a good pull at his water-bottle and sits, slowly frying in the sun, till the beat strikes up. He will now appreciate the precautions he has taken of wearing a good big hat, a thick cummerbund round his waist, and a cotton quilt down his back. In the meantime men have been posted as stops along the flanks of the beat and in places where the tiger may break out; these are of course either up trees or on high rocks, and their orders are merely to clap their hands if the tiger tries to break out. The slightest noise ahead will suffice to turn a tiger. As a rule the guns are not allowed to smoke, and this, not so much from fear lest he should wind the tobacco, as because, if he hears a match struck, he will perhaps crouch till the beaters come up to him, and then dash back through them. The beaters form line under the direction of all the available shikaris (the four or five elephants that may be out being distributed along the line), and advance towards the guns making all the noise they can with tomtoms, horns, rattles and their own sweet voices. If matters go smoothly the tiger will walk with long swinging strides close past one of the guns, and be either dropped on the spot, the point of the shoulder being the place to aim at, or will dash on with a loud ‘wough’ towards the gun-carrier in rear, who should be able to mark him down. He may, however, particularly if he has been driven before, creep on just ahead of the beaters, hide before he reaches the guns till the last moment, and then come out at a gallop. If he has to cross an open glade, he will almost invariably bound across, pulling up to a walk in the cover of the far side.
Probably the first things that the sportsman will see will be a herd of chital trooping quietly past his tree, or he will hear an irresolute tread among the dry leaves coming closer and closer, till the head of a peacock peers round a bush, instantly detects him—for no man ever yet hid from a peacock—and the bird scurries off with a squawk. A bear may come shambling by, or a panther walk right under his tree, but the first shot must be reserved for the tiger; when that is fired anyone may take his choice. The sure signs of either a tiger or panther being in the beat are when the monkeys begin swearing or peafowl get up with a peculiar ‘kok-kok.’ Monkeys running along the ground is a bad sign for sport, but not an absolute guide.
As soon as the first shot is fired the beaters are stopped, and either sent up trees or collected in masses on rocks or high ground. The elephants come up to the guns, and the head of the party details one or two guns to get round the wounded tiger and force him back up to the other guns, who remain in their trees—this is when the fun begins. The tiger’s every move will be probably observed by some of the men in the trees; he can hardly get away, and has every inducement to show fight.
If a tiger is killing near camp, there is a good deal of sport to be had by going round the baits in the morning oneself. If one of them is taken, a wide circuit should be made round the cover with a good tracker to ensure the tiger being at home. An inner circuit may be then made to determine his approximate position, and to do this well without disturbing him requires great care and skill; but the knowledge so gained is invaluable in beating for him afterwards.