It is true that in my forest cabin I have an assortment of the best wines and whiskies, notwithstanding the improbability of being able to offer a glass to my friends, but those bottles remain well corked, waiting for their legitimate owner to feel indisposed, when a draught of their contents will restore his lost strength without resorting to medicine.
The greatest dangers in the jungle are those which cannot be met with impunity; those that render every defence inefficacious when a man is taken unawares.
I speak of the tigers and panthers that are very numerous and audacious; of the bears, that do not act so jocosely here as in our streets and menageries but vie with other wild beasts in blood-thirstiness; of the rhinoceros, the elephant, the terrible sladan, the wild dogs that, fierce as wolves, wander about in large packs.
A dissertation upon the tiger and its like does not seem to me a sufficiently interesting subject for my readers who will have seen, who knows how many, at the fairs and museums and will have learnt their character and habits from Natural History books or from the description (not always correct) of someone who has only set foot on the land where they live. I must, however, make special mention of the sladan, the only survivor of an almost extinct fauna.
This animal belongs to the herbivorous class but is more ferocious than any of the carnivorous species. It does not kill from hunger or for self-defence, but for the mere sake of killing.
It is a sort of buffalo or bison with two very solid, strongly planted horns on its thick-set head. This animal possesses such vigour and agility as to enable it to attack victoriously all other wild beasts. Only the elephant sometimes succeeds, with difficulty, in mastering it.
Its den is in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the forest and by day and by night it scours the neighbourhood, rending the air with its awful roars. One is never sure of not meeting it, and to meet it either means to kill it or to be killed.
It is very fond of the tender shoots of sweet potatoes and for this will often visit the crops cultivated by the Sakais who, for fear of this dreaded enemy, do not plant very much. Generally, though, the sladan devastates the potato fields during the night.
The ferocity of this beast surpasses that of all others, for whilst the lion, the bear and even the tiger and panther have been known to show some feeling of respect, gratitude or fear, the sladan never exhibits one or the other. It would almost seem that in him is concentrated all the hatred of a race of animals, fast dying out, against every living creature whose species is still destined to remain in the world.