“A sounding whack on the head, however, made her quicken her steps, and thrusting the long stalks aside, she discovered for us three blinking little cubs, brothers of the defunct, and doubtless part of the same litter. Their eyes were scarcely open, and they lay huddled together like three enormous striped kittens, and spat at us, and bristled their little mustaches much as an angry cat would do. All four were males.
“It was not long before I had them wrapped up carefully in the mahout’s blanket. Overjoyed at our good fortune, we left the excited herd still executing their singular war-dance, and the enraged tigress, robbed of her whelps, consuming her soul in baffled fury.
“We heard her roaring through the night close to camp, and on my friends’ arrival, we beat her up next morning, and she fell, pierced by three balls, in a fierce and determined charge. We came upon her across the nullah, and her mind was evidently made up to fight.”
A tiger may fail in front of a herd, but with stragglers, and there are always such, the case is not the same. He can kill individual buffaloes, or he would not be there, and this is done so quietly and expeditiously that very often the act remains for a time undiscovered. His “fore-paw,” observes Inglis, “is a most formidable weapon of attack.... One blow is generally sufficient to slay the largest bullock or buffalo.” Then he reports how a tiger, charging through the skirts of a herd, “broke the backs of two of these animals, ... giving each a stroke, right and left, as he passed along.” Now it is certain that an Asiatic buffalo is quite as large and formidable an animal as the bison; and it may naturally be inferred from this, that most of these latter fare differently from the one Leveson and Burton saw fighting at the Nedeniallah Hills.
Having thus secured a supply of beef, the tiger usually withdraws and waits for night to make his meal. But if he were alone with his victim, if there were no danger of being winded and attacked by its companions, he would act differently, and might eat at once. Inglis does not tell how he became acquainted with the following details, but he states that as soon as his prey is struck down, the tiger “fastens on the throat of the animal he has felled, and invariably tries to tear open the jugular vein.” This he does instinctively, because he knows intuitively that “this is the most deadly spot in the whole body.” But the tiger’s intuitions and Inglis’s knowledge are both at fault in this particular. “When he has got hold of his victim by the throat, he lies down, holding on to the bleeding carcass, snarling and growling, and fastening and unfastening his talons.” In some instances, continues this writer, he may drink the blood, “but in many cases I know from my own observation that the blood is not drunk.” After life is extinct, these brutes “walk round the prostrate carcasses of their victims, growling and spitting like tabby cats.” If they wish to eat then, the body is neatly disembowelled, and the meal begins on the haunch. A panther or leopard would commonly commence with the inner part of the thighs, “a wolf tears open the belly and eats the intestines first,” and a hawk, and other birds of prey, pick out the eyes; but a tiger follows the course described, as a rule, and after having bolted—for he never chews his food—as much as he can hold, the remainder is dragged off and concealed, or at least this is the intention, though his design is always very imperfectly executed.
Colonel Barras, while waiting for a tiger driven by beaters, saw the beast break back upon their line, as these animals are apt to do, and with evil consequences, seeing that no power can keep Hindus together.
“I saw him rise up on his hind legs and take the head of one of them in his mouth. In an instant he dropped his victim, and made short pounces at the others, who (as may be supposed) were flying wildly in all directions. Numbers of them left the long cloths they wear round their heads sticking to the thorny bushes. These, it seemed to me, the tiger mistook for some snare, as he suddenly turned and bounded away at tremendous speed under the very tree I was in. Owing to the great pace he was going I missed him. I have since seen others miss under the same circumstances, but at the time I felt my position keenly, being under the impression that other persons invariably dropped their tigers whenever and wherever they might get a glimpse of them.
“It only remained now to follow up the brute with elephants. Owing to the fierceness of the sun, he would not be likely to travel far, or make many moves. After tracking for about an hour, he did turn out in front of one of the elephants, and was fired at by the people in the howdah, with what success I do not remember. For a moment he pulled himself up, and seemed about to charge, but thought better of it, and was soon out of sight again. We followed him for some hours along the rocky banks of the river, visiting all the most likely nooks and corners, in hopes that he might find it impossible to travel any further over the burning rocks. Towards evening he was descried at the distance of a quarter of a mile, swimming across a deep pool that led into an extensive piece of forest. Here we deemed it advisable to leave him for the night, and organize a fresh plan for the morrow. Accordingly the next morning a beat was commenced from the opposite side of the wood, which proved successful. The tiger broke readily and was shot by one of the party. It was a very fine male, in the prime of life. At first I wondered why it was so certainly admitted to be the tiger of the day before. On asking the question, his feet were pointed out to me. They were completely raw with his long ramble over the burning rocks. It is not improbable that had he been only slightly driven, he would have travelled miles away during the night, and we might have lost him.”
As for the wounded man, whose skull, strange to say, had not been crushed, he was carefully attended to and well rewarded for his sufferings.
“An occasional accident of this sort should not be looked upon as a proof of the brutal indifference of the English in India to the lives of the suffering natives—quite the contrary. The natives, except under European leadership, will not go out against dangerous animals. Bapoo says, ‘My cow is not killed, and besides I have obtained a charm from a holy man, by which she is made safe against tigers. Why should I go out?’ On the other hand, Luximon says, ‘My cow is killed; I shall certainly not go.’” In consequence of these reasonings, they and their cattle continue to be eaten. As Barras says, “The result is that the tigers get the better of the natives, and kill so many of them and their cattle, that I have seen many ruined villages, which have been abandoned owing to the neighborhood of these animals. It is, therefore, a very good thing for the inhabitants when a well-appointed shooting party arrives.