Sanderson (“Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India”) thinks “the tiger’s powers of springing are inconsiderable.” Sir Joseph Fayrer (“The Royal Tiger”) says that “it is doubtful whether a tiger ever bounds when charging,” and Inglis supports him in this particular. Captain Shakespear regarded a machan twelve feet high as perfectly secure, and Captain Baldwin felt that he was safe when fifteen feet above the ground. Moray Brown saw a tiger jump fourteen feet high. J. H. Baldwin (“The Large and Small Game of Bengal”) reports a case in which a tiger leaped the stockade of a cattle-pen “with a large full-grown ox in his mouth,” and Dr. Fayrer gives, in the work referred to, the only authentic story of a tiger’s having taken a man out of a howdah while the elephant was on his feet. Major G. A. R. Dawson describes the accident that occurred to General Morgan from a wounded tigress that sprang across a ravine twenty-five feet wide and struck him down. Captain W. Rice (“Tiger Shooting in India”) measured the leap of a tigress he shot, and found it to be “over seven yards.”
Professor Blyth and Dr. Jerdon concluded from their researches at the Calcutta Museum and elsewhere that tigers could not climb. It was certainly a very singular conclusion to come to on anatomical grounds; but waiving this point, we have the statements of Inglis and Shakespear to the fact that several were shot in trees. It is not worth while to continue these inquiries as to whether it is possible to discover something certain about tigers from books; on all points connected with them we should find the same discordances.
Although Buffon’s extravagances (“Histoire Naturelle”) about this brute’s disposition need not be seriously considered,—such expressions as “sa ferocité n’est comparable à rien” meaning nothing, and no creature, for physiological reasons, being capable of remaining in “a perpetual rage,”—enough is known about the beast to make it doubtful whether it deserves the “whitewashing” that some have given its character. But if it be granted that tigers possess intelligence, that in many places they have become acquainted with the effects of European firearms, and are not at all likely to mistake an Englishman with a rifle for a Hindu carrying a staff, many things which seem inexplicably at variance will become plain. If rage does not overpower their discretion, they run away when the prospect of certain death stares them in the face. What do they do when it does not? that is the question at present, and the answer is that they act like tigers. This most formidable of beasts of prey is not in the least afraid of a man because he is a man; he does not quail at his glance—that enrages him; his voice will not always startle,—it often attracts; nor can the scent of a human being of itself turn him aside—on the contrary, it frequently guides the beast to his prey. So much for the general view; and we may now go into the jungle again and discuss what befalls, in the light of those principles which have been advanced elsewhere. This will be a duróra against the tigers of a district, our hunting-grounds lie in historic spots, and the party is accompanied by elephants, baggage animals, attendants, and all the varied appliances that belong to a raid of this kind conducted upon a large scale.
Close to our camp lie the crumbling cedghas, shrines, tombs, and fortress palaces of a race of princes now extinct, and seated in a kiosk around whose crumbling walls half-effaced Persian and Arabic inscriptions tell of the beauty of some girl whose bright eyes closed ages ago, and whose career of ineffectual passion finds a fit emblem in the pishash, or transient dust column that glides across the plain, let us attempt to forecast the events of to-morrow. More can be foretold than one would suppose. The tiger’s size and age, the configuration of the ground, his previous habits of life, and the places where shade and water are to be found, will certainly affect his movements after he has been roused, and when the shikáris come in we shall know all this. Here is the head huntsman now, who comes back from his scout to make a report to the “Captain of the hunt,” an experienced sportsman always elected on such occasions to take a general direction of affairs, and manœuvre our elephants in the field. Mohammed Kasim Ali is a typical figure and worth looking at; a small withered being with a dingy turban wound around his straggling elf locks; dressed in a ragged shirt of Mhowa green, and lugging a matchlock as long as himself loaded half way up the barrel. He bears the big bison horn of coarse slow-burning native powder, and a small gazelle-horn primer. His person is bedecked with amulets, and his beard, he being an elderly man, is dyed red—if he were young, it would be stained gray. But despite this man’s grotesque appearance, he possesses a profound knowledge of wood-craft, and as a tracker and interpreter of signs, no savage or white prodigy of the wilderness who ever embellished the pages of a certain style of romance can surpass him.
This worthy delivers himself somewhat as follows: “May I be your sacrifice! Whilst searching with eagerness for these sons of the devil, your slave beheld the footprints of a tiger. Alla ke Qoodrut, it is the power of God; then why should your servant defile his mouth with lies? These tracks were made by the great-grandfather of all tigers. The livers of Chinneah and Gogooloo turned to water at the sight, but sustained by my Lord’s condescension I followed them to a nálá, and he was standing by a pool. Karinda and tamarisk bushes grew more thickly than lotus flowers in Paradise, but I saw clearly that the unsainted beast was bigger than a buffalo bull. His teeth were as iron rakes, his eyes glared like bonfires, and the spirits of those whom he had devoured sat upon his head.” This with many aspirations, to the effect that unquenchable fire might consume the souls of the tiger’s entire family.
This rhodomontade—quite in keeping, however, with the individual and his country—means that a large tiger was seen, and will be found for us next day.
The one that Kasim Ali, the eloquent, saw by the pool was making ready for his nightly excursion; for although they are frequently seen abroad by day, these animals are nocturnal in habit. The writer, however, sees no reason for repeating a remark which is often made in this connection, namely, that they are “half-blind” during daylight. There is no rigidity in the iris, nothing to prevent the eye from adjusting itself to different degrees of intensity in that medium by which the retina is stimulated. He sees very well at night, and if sensitive to a strong light, so are many other animals whose vision is also good when it is not dark. It is habitual with tigers to seek shade; and any eyes, except those of some birds, would be dazzled by the intense glare of an Indian sun.
When viewed by the shikáris, he had lately roused from his rest as the day declined, and the faint lowing of distant herds, and far-away voices of Gwallas bringing home their cattle penetrated to his retreat. He stretched his lithe length and magnificent limbs, his fierce eyes dilated, and a strange and terrible change came over the beast. Every attitude and motion betrayed his purpose. But although murder was in his mind, and all that he did revealed that intention, his movements varied, or would do so, with age and experience. If the animal were young, and had been but recently separated from the tigress, that taught him to find prey, showed how to attack it, and encouraged him to kill for the sake of practice, his actions would exhibit all the boldness that comes from entire self-confidence. He then leaves the lair without precaution, and takes his way through the intricacies of the jungle with confidence, not pausing to examine every sign, as his trail shows. If old, however, an unusual sound would stop him, a footprint in the path that was not there when he last passed would turn him aside. This tiger of ours is not aged, but has learned something since he became solitary like all his kind, except in the brief season of pairing. Experience may be thrown away on men, but not upon tigers. This one will never again make mistakes such as those into which overboldness and want of proper attention have already betrayed him. Once, shortly after he began to shift for himself, a buffalo, of whom he thought that it could be killed as easily as a slim long-necked native cow, tossed him. Another time when too hungry to wait for a favorable opportunity, he seized upon a calf prematurely. No sooner did his roar of triumph as he struck it dead echo through the jungle, than a dark crescentic line fringed with clashing horns confronted him. It came on in quick irregular rushes, and no tiger could withstand such an array, so he had to fly. His glossy hide was ripped likewise by a “grim gray tusker,” which the unsophisticated youth designed to despatch without difficulty. Before these instructive incidents occurred something more had been learned also.
One morning the silence was broken by blasts of cholera horns, the beating of tom-toms, and wild cries from a multitude of men—such men, however, as he knew and had frequently observed in the jungle and elsewhere. But there was now a man, mounted on an elephant, the like of which he had never seen, but whose appearance is not forgotten. He had guns far worse than matchlocks, instruments of sudden death that killed his mother. This formidable robber, for all his ferocious temper, great strength, and terrible means of offence, is as cunning as a fox, and wary to a degree that closely simulates cowardice. But one might as well call North American Indians cowards,—which by the way is often done by those whose opinions are unbiassed by any personal acquaintance with them,—because they always fight on the principle of taking the greatest advantage and least risk.
To start a party such as ours takes time, and of the value of time no Hindu has the slightest idea. The mob of beaters are packed off with strenuous injunctions to keep together, but they will not do so. An ineradicable heedlessness besets them, and they are certain to straggle, though the risk that doing so entails is perfectly well understood. The Oriental says, “If it is my fate to perish thus, how can I avoid the decree of heaven? My destiny is fixed; it is in the hands of God, and may the devil take these infidels who talk as if matters could be otherwise than as they are.”