Wild beasts

by J. Hampden Porter

One can scarcely look upon the poor, dispirited wretch behind the bars of a cage, without freeing it in fancy, and transferring the animal to fitting surroundings,—open spaces in jungle, where tall jowaree grass waves in the evening air, deep nálás clothed with karinda and tamarisk, vast, gloomy forests of sál and teak, magnificent mountain buttresses, upon whose crags stand the ruined fortresses of long-forgotten chiefs. The tiger of the mind, splendid and terrible is there, and we are there to meet him.

“In some parts of India,” remarks Inglis (“Work and Sport on the Nepaul Frontier”), “notably in the Deccan, in certain districts on the Bombay side, and even in the Soonderbunds, near Calcutta, sportsmen and shikáris go after tigers on foot. I must confess that this seems to me a mad thing to do. With every advantage of weapon, with the most daring courage, and the most imperturbable coolness, I think a man no fair match for a tiger in his native jungles.” The list of killed and wounded shows that this opinion is not without foundation; and when we consider what it means to meet such adversaries as these on level ground, and face to face, our judgment of its accuracy cannot be doubtful. Gérard compared a contest on foot with a lion to a duel between adversaries armed with equally efficient weapons, but one naked and the other covered with armor in which there were only one or two spots that were not impenetrable. He intended to illustrate, not the animal’s invulnerability, of course, but the fact that its tenacity of life was such that, unless instantly killed, it would almost certainly kill its opponent. For this reason sportsmen mostly shoot from howdahs, or machans in tree-jungle. In its depths a great forest is nearly lifeless at all times. In India its skirts are commonly fringed with scrub, and there most of the vitality of these regions concentrates itself. The intense heat of noonday at that season when tiger-hunting begins—namely, in April—makes those immense woodlands as silent and lonesome, to all appearance, as if the hand of death had been laid upon them. But when the short twilight of low latitudes deepens into gloom, the air, before vacant, except for the wide sweep of some solitary bird of prey, is filled with the voices of feathered flocks returning to their roosts. Flying foxes cross vistas still open to the view, and great horned owls flit by on muffled wings. Those spectral shapes which haunt such scenes appear amid the solemn gathering of shadows—contrasts in shade indescribably altering objects from what they are, waving boughs and rigid tree trunks that start into strange relief in changing lights, the distorted forms of animals indistinctly seen moving stealthily about. Throughout those provinces where the most famous tiger haunts are found, positions of advantage, each beetling cliff and isolated hill, holds mementos of the past which are now inexpressibly desolate; the former strongholds of Rajpúts that may, like the Baghél clan, have claimed descent from a royal tiger. As we sit aloft watching, a gleam of water, where when gorged the beast will drink, is visible, and towards that also, each with infinite precaution, and guided by senses of whose range and delicacy of perception human beings cannot conceive, the thirsty denizens of this wilderness take their way. When we mark their timid and uncertain steps, and see how often they hesitate and stop and turn aside, the truth that “nature’s peace” is only a form of words expressive of our own misconception and blindness reveals itself most impressively. There is no peace. To hunt and be hunted, to slay and be slain, that is the cycle of all actual life.

Here, while the solemn booming of the great rock monkey sounds like a death knell, those tragedies take place which only a hunter beholds. Every creature has its enemy, and there is one abroad in the gloaming from which all fly. Listen! Above the sambur’s hoarse bark, the bison’s cavernous bellow, and hyæna’s unearthly cry, a deep, flat, hollow voice, thrilling with power, floats through the forest. It is a tiger rounding up deer. If he were in ambush, not the slightest sound would betray his presence. Now his roar, sent from different directions, crowds the game together, and puts it at his mercy.

When and in what way will our tiger come? Some of these beasts never return to a “kill,” they lap the blood, or eat once, and abandon their quarry altogether. Others consume it wholly in one or several meals, and even after putrefaction has set in. This animal for whom we wait may approach boldly while it is yet light, or wait till darkness falls, and appear at any hour of the night. At its coming it might put in practice every precaution that could be made use of in stealing upon living prey, or walk openly towards the carcass with long, swinging, soft but heavy strides.

Incidents of any special kind, however, reveal the tiger’s nature only in part. What sort of a being is this in whole; how much mind does he possess; what are the traits common to his species; and what their individual peculiarities? Do tigers roar like lions and jaguars, and is it probable that their neighborhood would be announced in this manner? Are they in the habit of going about by day; and if not, on what kind of nights is the beast most active and aggressive? How does a tiger take his prey, especially man? How far can one spring; in what way does he kill; what is his mode of devouring creatures? Can tigers climb? How large are they? Will they assail human beings without provocation, or has the aspect of humanity a restraining power over them? May they be met with casually, and at any time? Where are their favorite lairs? Are they brave or cowardly, cunning or stupid, enterprising, adaptive, energetic, or the reverse?

Sanderson declares that the tiger never roars; he grunts according to Major Bevan, and the only approach to roaring Baldwin ever heard, was a hollow, hoarse, moaning cry, made by holding his head close to the ground. Inglis describes the sound as like the fall of earth into some deep cavity, and Colonel Davidson protests that the tiger barks. Pollok, Leveson, Shakespear, and Rice assert that he roars loudly, terribly, magnificently, tremendously; and D’Ewes (“Sporting in Both Hemispheres”) states that in comparison with the roar of a tigress he encountered in the jungle between Ballary and Dharwar, “any similar sound he may have heard, either at the zoölogical gardens or elsewhere, was like a penny trumpet beside an ophicleide.” All these names are those of men who hold the most conspicuous positions among hunters of large game; all had killed many tigers and often heard the animal’s voice.

Much the same contradictory evidence exists with regard to other things. Colonel Pollok assures us that if he trusted to ambushing game to supply himself with food he would starve to death. Captain Rice, a renowned slayer of tigers, lays down the law to this effect, that these brutes never attack except from an ambush.

Without crowding the page with references, suffice it to say that both by day and night, in forests, thickets, and open grass land, tigers have many times been reported by equally reliable witnesses both to stalk their game, and to spring upon it from a place of concealment.

The striped assassin is provided with a jaw and teeth that enable him to crush the large bones of a buffalo. He can strike his claws, as Major Bevan saw him do, through the skull of an ox into its brain, or break a horse’s back with a blow of his forearm. How then does he despatch his victims? Their necks are dislocated, says Colonel Pollok; by biting into them and wrenching round the head with his paws, explains Captain Forsyth. Not at all, protests Baldwin;—dislocation is effected by bending the head backward. In neither way, Dr. Jerdon declares;—the animal’s neck is always broken by a blow. Sir Samuel Baker adds his testimony to the effect that a tiger never strikes, and Sanderson says “the blow with his paw is a fable.” Other authorities maintain that the cervical vertebræ are crushed when the beast, as it always does, bites the back of the neck; and yet others are sure that since he never seizes an animal in this manner, loss of blood is the immediate cause of death, because the great vessels are severed when a tiger, as is his invariable practice, cuts into the throat. Sanderson states that the blood is not sucked, since a tiger could not form the necessary vacuum. In response to this Shakespear and Davidson both saw the blood of animals that had been tied up as lures sucked, and Colonel Campbell, Captain Rice, Major Leveson, and others speak of this act as having come under their personal cognizance.

These animals have been so generally credited with great springing power that the expressions, “tiger’s leap,” and “tiger’s bound,” have passed into the colloquial phrases of more than one language. Nevertheless, when the experiences of eye-witnesses of his performances in this way are referred to, nothing but contradictions are to be met with.