In Bombay and Madras elephants are not generally used, and, instead of the square cushions to sit on, light bamboo ladders are carried and set up against trees or clumps of bamboo where cushions could not be slung, the top of the ladder being lashed to the tree or bush, and the sportsman seating himself on one of the rungs. Many sportsmen praise these highly, as being easier to erect and giving more choice of position; but, on the other hand, they entail an extra man to accompany the sportsman to his tree, and are more conspicuous. Accidents of course happen equally to both; men have been taken out of their cushions, and ladders have been upset. The district in which the sportsman has received his training usually decides his choice of gear. The want of elephants, however, in Bombay and Madras obliges the guns to follow up their wounded tigers on foot. The orthodox procedure is to form a picked force of beaters and shikaris into a solid triangle, the apex and flanks being formed by the guns. Every man should provide himself before starting with all the stones he can carry; the wounded tiger is generally given a considerable time to stiffen—two hours if they can be spared may well be spent thus. The trail is then followed at a slow pace, every bush being well stoned before it is approached, far more passed; at every tree the party is halted and a man sent up to look, and if a tracker is necessary, he moves close under the guns of the two sportsmen who form the apex. If the natives can only be persuaded to keep together, with cool guns and fairly open ground like the bamboo jungles of Southern India, there is no excessive danger; but the writer’s experience of the work was that for the first hundred yards the men kept together pretty well, but would go too fast; then they became careless, and as the danger really increased began to straggle. Being single-handed, though there was another party working parallel to him at about fifty yards distance, the writer was unable to keep his men in order, and by the time the tiger was found, luckily dead, by the other party, his followers were all over the place.
The subjoined account by Captain Lamb gives a good idea of what may be expected to take place without trained men:
As soon as the beaters came up we [Major Mansel and himself] had awful trouble to prevent them scattering about in the jungle. We waited about twenty minutes, and then started to follow the tiger up. We took twenty men and formed them four deep, close up and shoulder to shoulder, M. and I going in front. We impressed upon the men that they were on no account to leave the square, and sent two men on each flank up trees to examine the ground in front. We could easily track the tiger by his blood, and in one place found what looked like a piece of his liver. We knew he could not go far, especially as he was full of cow. Some of the men began to wander a little, and we had to abuse them to make them keep their places. The trail led us through dry grass up to our knees, but not very thick, and growing under scattered young trees. After going about two hundred yards we heard the tiger growling, but he must have moved on. We could still follow him by his blood. Another hundred yards, and we could hear him distinctly. The square began to break, and several men started shinning up trees; M. shouted ‘Look out,’ and the words were not out of his mouth when the tiger came, his tail up, his mane on end, at a gallop, roaring and making straight for us. He was about twenty yards off when he first came out, and looked an awful devil, being almost black from rolling in the ashes where the jungle had been burnt. M. fired at him when he was about ten yards off, and he swerved a little to his right, passing M. within five yards. I was on M.’s right and could not fire before, but as the tiger passed I turned and fired behind M.’s back; there was a cloud of dust, and at first we only heard a thud, and could not see whether the tiger had gone on or not; as the dust cleared, we saw him lying stone-dead. It was a very lucky shot through the neck, as by this time the square was in full retreat, the men scattering all about and falling over each other. The front rank and part of the second alone stood firm, so if the tiger had gone on he would certainly have mauled one or two of the natives. He measured 9 ft. 9 ins. as he lay.
The worst part of getting a native hurt is, that though it almost invariably happens through his own wilful disobedience of orders, the news spreads like wildfire through the district, and makes it very hard for the party to procure beaters. Rustum Ali, the villagers argue, was a brave man; he didn’t fear tigers, we have seen him throw stones at tigers, and he went out with those sahibs and got killed—the said Rustum having met with his death by getting out of his tree and going to get a drink of water while the guns were following up a wounded tiger, or some equally nonsensical breach of orders. Accidents of course do happen, even when all precautions are observed, but the majority of them are occasioned by the natives’ own carelessness.
Natives are often very unwilling to give information about tigers, partly from fear of being turned out to beat, and partly from the universal idea that the tiger, if he escapes, or his mate, if he is killed, will take vengeance on them. They often also consider it unlucky to mention his name, and talk of him as a jackal, precisely as in Sweden a bear is never talked of as such.
Sitting up for a tiger over a kill or bait is the least amusing and least certain of any method of hunting him, but often in large forests which cannot be beaten, or where the sportsman is single-handed and without elephants, it is the only way to get a shot.
‘THE FRONT RANK AND PART OF THE SECOND ALONE STOOD FIRM’
The erection of the platform, or ‘machan,’ too frequently disturbs the tiger and drives him away. If the sportsman can procure baits, a good plan is to select a good place for a machan before tying up; tether lightly so that the tiger may drag the carcase away. Make the machan when the first bait is taken, tie up again till he kills again in the same place, and about three days after the second kill tie up again and sit over it. The best machan is a cot with low rails round the edge, fitted with ropes to sling it in a tree. The sportsman’s blankets and pillows can be spread in it, he himself can lie comfortably at full length watching the bait or kill, there are no sticks to crackle and make a noise; and when the moon goes down or he has had his shot, he can turn round and sleep as one only sleeps in the open. The sportsman should be at his post by four o’clock in the afternoon, as if the tiger means coming he will probably come early. Sanderson says he enjoys the sport; it’s pleasant enough if the tiger comes soon, but if he puts off his visit to 3 a.m., as happened to the writer, who was at that hour peacefully sleeping and never woke up, the entertainment is mediocre. Allowing a native to perch on the same tree is ruination to sport: cough he must; besides, the jungle man is unsavoury, and the evening air seems to make him smell worse than usual. If a kill is found in the jungle and the sportsman decides to sit over it, General Macintyre’s plan is worth trying; i.e. take some men up to the tree, let them talk loudly, or shout while the machan is being prepared, and then retire talking or shouting, according as the tiger is supposed to be bold or timid. He will very likely come at once, as their voices die away, not to eat, but to see if they have removed the kill. This often succeeds where professional skinners are in the habit of saving what they can of the hides of kills. Lieutenant-Colonel Fife Cookson, in his book ‘Tiger Shooting in the Doon and Ulwar,’ gives a curious account of a tiger stalking a bait: