“Accordingly, we repaired to the desired locality, and scattered ourselves about without taking any of the usual precautions. Some of us helped in the beat, and some of the beaters converted themselves into shooters, and took up such positions as seemed good to them. Things were proceeding very pleasantly, when suddenly a shot was fired by one of the natives, and word was rapidly passed that he had aimed at a tiger, which had not fallen, but gone on up a ravine towards the head of the jungle. No blood marks were found, and the bullet was held to have missed. This was ultimately found to be true. But at the moment I doubted it, for the man was an excellent shot, and the tiger had come out slowly just in front of him.... At all events, the tiger was gone, and I and my friend had to do our best to find him. The elephant Bahadur Gūj was called up, and I and my companion stood up in front of the howdah, while the native who had first fired at the animal occupied a back seat with his little son.
“For a long time our search was fruitless. We worked up to the head of the jungle without finding a vestige of the enemy. On our way back my coadjutor pointed to a thick corinda bush and said, ‘That is a likely spot.’ I looked, and there was the tiger, or rather tigress, standing in the centre of it. We fired together. There was a roar, a scuffle, and a dense cloud of smoke, under cover of which the tigress disappeared, having only been seen by the small boy in the back seat. The cover consisted entirely of detached bushes, so we felt sure she could not have gone far. At last we discovered a black hole flush with the ground. This we approached cautiously, and on peering down saw the legs of a recumbent tiger. We threw stones in, but the animal never moved; and on getting a view of her head, my friend put a ball through it. Three of us now got down into the den, and with much difficulty contrived to get the beast out without injuring the skin.”
Looking around once for a wounded tiger in the Nielgherries by night, Major Leveson and his party drove the beast into a patch of jungle, “not more than fifty yards long by twenty wide. Chinneah (the head shikári) threw a couple of lighted rockets into this retreat, which evidently annoyed him, although they had not the effect of causing the animal to break; it only set up a low angry growl that lasted for some time. Two or three times I saw the bushes shake as if it were about to spring; and once I caught a hurried glimpse of its outline, and threw up my rifle, but put it down again, as I did not like to fire a chance shot with an uncertain aim. Again Chinneah’s rockets flew hissing about the tiger, and caused him to move, for B—— caught sight of him and let drive right and left. Then out he sprang with an appalling roar, and struck down poor Ali, who, notwithstanding my orders, had separated himself from the rest in order to pick up a stone to throw into the bush. His piercing death shriek rang through the night air, striking terror to every heart; and although I knew that it was too late to save him, I determined that he should be revenged, and dashed forward towards the spot where the infuriated brute was savagely growling as it shook the senseless but quivering body. No sooner did I get a glimpse of the tiger than I knew I was perceived, for with a short angry roar he left the corpse, and crouched low upon the ground, with head down, back arched, and tail lashing his heaving flanks. At this moment ... carefully aiming between the eyes which glared upon me like balls of fire, I fired—he reared up at full length, and fell back dead.
“Vengeance satisfied, I went up to poor Ali, whom I found shockingly mutilated. His death must, however, have been instantaneous, as the tiger with the first blow had shattered his skull and scattered his brains about the spot.”
The hunting tiger is not the highest development of his species. He has not much to learn, compared with a man-eater, in order to adjust himself to the requirements of life; and the gaunt, somewhat undersized, active, hardy, shy and solitary beast, pursues the tenor of his way far from the habitations of men, of whom he is wary and distrustful, chiefly on account of their strangeness.
To a cattle-lifter life presents more diversified scenes. The way in which the animal lives implies a greater complexity of conditions to which he is required to adapt himself, and a corresponding development of faculty. This kind of tiger, except under circumstances which rarely occur, is both a game-killer and beef-eater. Few districts yield a constant supply in the way of cattle, and when that fails, necessity compels the marauder to hunt almost exclusively, or take to homicide. On the one hand, these creatures have the experiences and training of their brethren belonging to the wastes; on the other, they are to some extent brought into a certain relationship with human beings, become accustomed to them, observe their actions, and are familiarized during those plundering expeditions, by which they mainly support themselves, with a variety of things which are altogether outside the ordinary experiences of wild beasts. Of the two classes, it goes without saying that the latter must be the more evolved; for it is not more certain that, other things being equal, the man who has had most training will be most capable, than it is that the same effects will follow in the case of tigers.
Those regions inhabited by hunting tigers have not failed to contribute, through the influence of their associations and scenery, to that vague body of feeling and of imaginative impressions, which most persons carry with them concerning this suggestive animal. “Tigers,” remarks Sherwell, “are prone to haunt those crumbling works belonging to states and dynasties that have been swept away by war.” In the deserted fortress of Mahoor, says Major Bevan, they were “so abundant that a few matchlock-men, who had been kept there to guard the temple, were afraid to go occasionally to the arsenal to bring their ammunition.” The jungles and forests where game-killing tigers prowl for their prey are among those scenes in nature which no man who has appreciated their full significance ever forgets. “They who have never explored a primeval forest,” writes Leveson, “can have but a very faint impression of the mysterious effect that absence of light and intense depth of gloom ... the unbroken stillness and utter silence ... exert upon the mind.” They “create a strange feeling of awe and loneliness that depresses the spirits and appalls the hearts of those unaccustomed to wander in these solitudes.... Solitude is too insufficient a term to convey an idea of the overpowering sensation of desolation and abandonment that pervades these regions.”
Stranger, perhaps stronger than all else, is the bewildering feeling of contrast between the impressive actualities of one’s surroundings, and the spectral appearance of whatever the eye takes in. Peril may be imminent at every step, and yet all things seem unreal in that weird atmosphere in which they are seen. Animals look like the shadows of themselves. An elephant’s motionless, gigantic form, looming even larger than in life, will define itself upon the sight, vanish as you gaze, and by some new effect of light, reappear in the same spot and the same position. It is like being in the enchanted forests of old romances; and such impressions can scarcely have failed to influence many whose exploits were performed amid such scenes. Leveson, in a place like this, saw the only encounter that has been described between the tiger and a bison bull.
“Whilst hunting in the jungle between the Bowani River, and the Goodaloor Pass, at the foot of the Nedeniallah Hills, my friend Burton and I witnessed a most gallantly-contested fight between a bull bison and a tiger.... Night had scarcely set in when a loud bellowing was heard, followed by an unmistakable roar that caused no little commotion amongst the horses and bullocks that were picketed round our tents. From the ominous sounds which succeeded we knew that a mortal combat was raging at no great distance from our bivouac. Having arranged for the safety of our camp, Burton and I, armed with rifles and pistols, followed closely by Chinneah and Googooloo, each carrying a couple of spare guns, sallied forth; and keeping along the bank of the river for a short distance, entered the dense cover, from which the sounds of the contest seemed to issue, by a narrow deer-run. Here we could only get along very slowly, having to separate the tangled brushwood with one hand, and hold our rifles cocked and ready with the other. We proceeded in this manner for some distance, guided by the noise of the contest, which sounded nearer and nearer, and came to an opening in the woods where we saw a huge bull bison, evidently much excited, for his eyes flashed fire, his tail was straight on end, and he was tearing up the ground with his forefeet, all the while grunting furiously. As we were all, luckily, well to leeward, the taint in the air was not likely to be winded, so I made signs to the bearers to lay down their guns, and climb into an adjacent tree; while Burton and myself, with a rifle in each hand, by dint of creeping on our hands and knees, gained a small clump of bushes on a raised bank, and not more than thirty yards distant, whence we could see all that was going on. When we first arrived, the tiger was nowhere to be seen; but from the bison’s cautious movements, I knew he could not be far off. The moon was high in the heavens, making the night as clear as day; so not a movement could escape us, although we were well concealed from view.
“Several rounds had already been fought, for the game had been going on a good twenty minutes before we came up, and the bison, besides being covered with lather about the flanks, bore several severe marks of the tiger’s claws on the face and shoulders. Whilst we were ensconcing ourselves comfortably behind the cover, with our rifles in readiness for self-defence only,—for we had no intention of interfering in the fair stand-up fight which had evidently been taking place,—a low savage growling about fifteen paces to the right attracted our attention; and crouched behind a tuft of fern, we discerned the shape of an immense tiger watching the movements of the bison, which, with his head kept constantly turned towards the danger, was alternately cropping the grass, and giving vent to his excited feelings every now and then by a deep, tremulous roaring, which seemed to awaken all the echoes of the surrounding woods. The tiger, whose glaring eyes were fixed upon his antagonist, now and again shifted his quarters a few paces either to the right or the left, once coming so near our ambuscade that I could almost have touched him with the muzzle of my rifle; but the wary old bull never lost sight of him for a second, and ever followed his motions with his head lowered to receive an attack. At last the tiger, which all along had been whining and growling most impatiently, stole gently forward, his belly crouching along the ground, every hair standing on end, his flanks heaving, his back arched, and his tail whisking about and lashing his sides; but before he could gather himself together for a spring which might have proved fatal, the bison, with a shriek of desperation, charged at full speed, with his head lowered and the horns pointed upward, but overshot the mark, as his antagonist adroitly shifted his ground just in time to avoid a vicious stroke from the massive horns. Then making a half circle, he sprang with the intention of alighting on the bison’s broad neck and shoulders. This the bull evaded by a dexterous twist; and before his adversary could recover himself, he again rushed at him, caught him behind the shoulders with his horns, and flung him some distance, following up to repeat the move, but the tiger slunk away to gather breath.