Its taste for them has often been discussed, but none of the theories propounded were more than guesses. The most interesting incident mentioned in these discussions concerned a leopard in the Shan States of Burma. It ordinarily lived on dogs and game and cattle, like other leopards, but once it killed a man and a woman. The magistrate who went to seek the corpses told me that, in following the trail, ornaments the woman had been wearing were found in bits on the ground, and then the two corpses—the man’s untasted, the woman’s more than half-eaten.
3. NO MAN COMES AMISS
This leopard was, without an effort, catholic in its tastes, especially when hungry. It seldom ate mere venison, or touched the dogs which common leopards love, but nothing human ever came amiss. It never heeded caste. It ate woodmen. It ate policemen. It ate the village artisans, especially leather workers, caught outside the villages. It ate a holy hermit, and was fond of priests. It ate postmen. It ate pilgrims. [125] ]The pilgrims crowded into bigger parties on its account, and kindled fires at night, and took turns of watching. More than once the leopard came upon the pilgrim sentry, not very wide-awake, and killed him suddenly. The rest were safe for that night, but did not sleep much. A solitary ploughman in a field, as he turned his cattle at the corner, was seized from behind, and had rest from his toil. It seldom happened that even the bones were found. The leopard did not eat the bones, but there were other beasts of many kinds and sizes to finish what was left.
The total of its “kills” came in the end to about three hundred, more or less, spread over a “considerable time” as these things go, that is to say, a year or two, more than a year, “a good deal more than a year,” it was said. In the long-drawn life of a man, who is very long lived for a beast, it can very seldom have happened, if ever it did happen, that any man, with all the helps of mechanism, has killed so many leopards.
4. ITS WAY OF DOING
“How could you be sure that this ‘kill’ was done by this particular leopard, and not by another?” was my frequent question, [126] ]variously answered, according to circumstances. It had a style of its own, one seemed to feel, after hearing a few of its exploits. There were instances of men hunting it, who were killed instead of killing; but, curiously enough, its most peculiar feat was a failure, from the leopard’s point of view.
It went into a big village one day, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, and in broad daylight strode through three-quarters of it, passing between two rows of houses. Swiftly as it seemed to sweep past, it must have been going slower than usual, for it looked right and left as it went, sending piercing looks into many screaming interiors. Near the farther end it turned and walked straight through the open doorway into an old man’s house, without pausing, as if it had come by appointment. The old man was alone inside, and lay dozing. It took him from his bed, and carried him away, and, strangest of all, instead of going to the outside of the village near that end, retraced its steps by the way it had come.
Men’s shouts now mingled with piercing screams and the old man’s cries for help, and the leopard saw in front of him, blocking his path, nine or ten men with big sticks. “By the grace of God” they had found it in their hearts to face [127] ]the monster, with no better weapons than these. Give honour where honour is due! There was courage needed for that.
With the dexterity of a Boer commander, who had ambuscaded a detachment but found an unexpected hostile force in his rear, the leopard grasped the situation, and changed his plans. Turning aside and passing between two houses, he escaped unhurt, but dropped the old man, who was also unhurt in body, though badly shaken in nerves.
The long evening hours did not drag so much as usual that night in the village, but by three or four o’clock in the morning there perhaps was nobody living there who had not forgotten his excitement and fallen asleep; and now the hour was at hand when the cocks would waken the world; but there was a ruder awakening than usual that morning there. From the old man’s house there rang out piercing yells. In a few minutes every man within hearing had come to it, with whatever weapons were at hand, and as many as could enter crowded in to hear the old man’s story.