“After a light dinner I lay down on my bed, but it was too close and too hot to sleep. By and by the various sounds died out. The tom-toming ceased in the village. My servants suspended their low-muttered gossip around the cook’s fire, wrapped themselves in their white cloths, and dropped into slumber. Toby, Nettle, Whiskey, Pincher, and the other terriers looked like so many curled-up hairy balls, and were in the land of dreams. Occasionally a horned owl would give a melancholy hoot from the forest, or a screech owl raise a momentary and damnable din. At intervals the tinkle of a cow-bell sounded faintly in the distance. I tossed restlessly, thinking of various things, till I must have sunk into an uneasy, fitful sleep. I know not how long I had been dozing, when of a sudden I felt myself wide awake, but with my eyes yet tightly closed.
“I was conscious of some terrible, unknown, impending danger. I had experienced the same thing before when waking from a nightmare, but I knew that the peril was now real. I felt a sinking horror, a terrible and nameless dread, and for the life of me I could not move hand or foot. I was lying on my side and could hear distinctly the thumpings of my own heart. A cold sweat broke out behind my ears, and over my neck and chest. I could analyze every feeling, and knew there was some Presence in the tent, and that I was in instant and imminent danger. Suddenly in the distance a pariah dog gave a prolonged melancholy howl. As if this had broken the spell that bound me, I opened my eyes, and within ten inches of my face there stood a handsome leopardess gazing steadily at me. Our eyes met, and how long we confronted each other I know not. It must have been for some moments. Her eyes contracted and expanded, the pupils elongated, and then opened out into a lustrous globe. I could see the lithe tail oscillating at its extreme tip with a gentle waving motion, like that of a cat when hunting birds in a garden.
“Just then there was a movement among the horses. The leopard slowly turned her head, and I grasped the revolver that lay under my pillow. The beautiful spotted monster turned her head for an instant, showed her teeth, and then with one bound went through the open side of the tent. I fired two shots, which were answered with a roar. The din that followed would have frightened the devil. It was a beautiful, clear night with a moon at the full, and everything showed as plainly as at noonday. My servants uttered exclamations of terror. The terriers went into an agony of yelps and barks. The horses snorted and tried to break loose, and my chowkeydar, who had been asleep on his watch, thinking a band of Dacoits had come upon us, began to lay about him with his staff, and shout, ‘Chor! Chor! lagga! lagga! lagga!’ that is, ‘thief! thief! lay on! lay on! lay on!’
“The leopard was hit, and was evidently in a terrible temper. She halted not thirty paces from the tent, beside a Shanum tree, and seemed undecided whether to go on or return and wreak her vengeance on me. That moment of hesitation decided her fate. I snatched down my Express rifle, which was hanging in two loops above my bed, and shot her right through the heart.
“I never understood how she could have made her way past dogs, servants, horses, and watchman, into the tent, without raising some alarm.”
Thus far, whether in courage, enterprise, and skill, whether in sagacity, or desperation of attack and defence, nothing has been found to traverse W. H. Lockington’s opinion (“Riverside Natural History”) to the effect that panthers, “relatively to their size, are the fiercest, strongest, and most terrible of beasts.”
In ancient Egypt and modern Abyssinia lions formed part of the royal paraphernalia. Marabouts lead around sacred animals of this species in North Africa, and if they occasionally kill somebody, the public in those parts understand that he was a sinner who deserved his fate. Leashed tigers also were not uncommon in the courts of Hindu rajahs, but since the time of the Indian Bacchus, whose car they drew, panthers have rarely appeared in parades. These savage brutes do not lend themselves to peaceful pageants. From all accounts they are the most intractable and untrustworthy of creatures—the least susceptible of instruction, says Sanderson (“Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India”).
Panthers have often been seen associated in families, but they do not display what Professor Romanes calls “the collective instinct in hunting.” They can supply their needs without resorting to these manœuvres, and therefore have not formed the habit of practising them.
It sometimes happens that Felis pardus in all its forms has to give up spoil. The lion takes its prey away, and so does the tiger. Occasionally some blundering, black rhinoceros comes upon the scene and puts the panther to flight, or a herd of wild hogs does the same. Kuon rutilans, the wild dog, is reported to be in the habit of appropriating their supplies, and J. Moray Brown (“Shikar Sketches”) states that he had personal knowledge of this fact. Upon the whole, however, the beast in question is not much molested.
Over-boldness is disadvantageous to any animal, and panthers suffer from their temerity in the way of getting trapped more frequently than other members of their family. General Morgan (“Memoirs”) remarks that “it is a very common thing to catch a panther,” but nobody has said the same of other Felidæ. The difficulty lies in comparing these species so as to assign the phenomenon to its real cause. The question is, how does it happen that a panther walks into a pit more frequently than a tiger? It cannot be said that it is because the latter has the more intelligence; facts do not sustain such an explanation, and yet the absence of deliberation stands in a direct relation with incompleteness of mental development.