“Round after round of the same kind followed, allowing breathing-time between each, the tiger generally getting the worst of it, for the bull sometimes received his rush on his massive forehead and horns, and threw him a considerable distance, bruised and breathless, although his skin seemed to be too tough for the points to penetrate. Once, however, I thought the bison’s chance was all over, for the tiger, by a lucky spring, managed to fasten on his brawny shoulder, and I could hear the crunching sound of his teeth meeting again and again in the flesh, while the claws tore the flank like an iron rake. With a maddening scream of mingled rage and pain, the bull flung himself heavily on the ground, nearly crushing his nimble adversary to death with his ponderous weight; and the tiger, breathless and reeling with exhaustion, endeavored to slink away with his tail between his legs. But no respite was given, his relentless foe pursued with roars of vengeance, and again rolled him over before he could regain his legs to make another spring. The tiger, now fairly conquered, endeavored to beat a retreat, but this the bison would not allow. He rushed at him furiously over and over again; and at last, getting him against a bank of earth, pounded him with his forehead and horns until he lay motionless, when he sprang with his whole weight upon him, striking him with the forefeet, and displaying an agility I thought incompatible with his unwieldy appearance.
“The combat, which had lasted over a couple of hours, was now over, for the tiger, which we thought might be only stunned, gave unmistakable signs of approaching dissolution. He lay gasping, his mouth half open, exposing his rough tongue and massive yellow teeth. His eyes were fixed, convulsive struggles drew up his limbs, a quiver passed over his body, and all was still. His conqueror was standing over him with heaving flanks, and crimsoned foam flying from his widely distended nostrils; but his rolling eye was becoming dim, for the life-blood was fast ebbing from a ghastly wound in the neck, and he reeled about like a drunken man, still, however, fronting his dead enemy, and keeping his horns lowered as if to charge. From time to time he bellowed with rage, but his voice became fainter, and at last subsided into a deep hollow moan. Then his mighty strength failed him, and he could not keep on his legs, which seemed to bend slowly, causing him to plunge forward. Again he made a desperate effort to recover himself, staggered a few paces, and with a surly growl of defiance, fell never to rise again; for, after a few convulsive heavings, his body became motionless, and we knew that all was over.”
How often a conflict between animals so formidable ends in the assailant’s repulse or death, we do not know, neither can we say whether bisons are habitually attacked by tigers. Lions destroy the African buffalo either singly or by taking odds; and in a personal contest, the tiger would generally have the advantage over a lion. They have often been pitted against each other, and the general result is well known to be as stated. Gunga, who belonged to the King of Oude, killed thirty lions, and destroyed another after being transferred to the zoölogical garden in London.
When the young tiger first makes his appearance among the fastnesses of forests, he is one foot long, has but little coat, although his stripes can be seen, and is blind. On the eighth or tenth day his eyes open, and by that time he has grown four inches and a half. At nine months the length is five feet, and at the expiration of a year he measures five feet eight inches. When two years of age the male’s length from tip to tip is about seven feet six inches, and that of the tigress seven feet. Between the second and third year they separate from their mother. While in the days of his youth the lodia bagh makes indiscriminate war upon the brute creation, commits unnecessary murders, stalks his prey instead of surprising it, and, Leveson and others assert, chases it like the cheetah. But time diminishes nervous energy, and leaves him, like all other beings, bereft of the incitements its excess engenders. Experience warns him against the consequences of temerity, and he grows lazy. Then these animals take to ambushing deer-runs and drinking places; they round up game by moving round and roaring; they practise upon the curiosity which besets the Cervidæ; and partly show themselves in the jungle to tempt an axis deer to a closer inspection; they are also said to bark in imitation of the sambur stag, in order to lure a doe or some pugnacious buck, within reach of a rush.
As for the beast that takes to man-eating, what was most probably at first an accidental event, now becomes the occupation of its life. In the first place it encountered men casually, now this is done with intention. He must study the habits of his game, and that he does so, is attested by his fatal success. Adme khane wallah, the eater of men, glares upon them from every “coign of vantage”; he discriminates between individuals, classes, and occupations, he learns the ways of farmers and woodcutters, of women who wash by the stream, of mail-carriers, and travellers on roads, of priests who serve at lonely shrines.
No country is so favorable for his exploits as India. The endless divisions of its people into castes or professions is destructive to unanimity of feeling and combined action. The “gentle Hindu,” who is one of the most callous and unsympathetic of mankind, folds his hands when one of his co-religionists has been carried off, and says that Kali probably sent the tiger for that especial purpose, so what has he to do with it? His Mussulman acquaintance twists his mustache, and mutters, Ul-humd-ul-illa, praise be to God, this man was only an infidel, and it was his destiny! They cannot act together, and formerly matters were worse than they are now.
Nothing could suit the prowling tiger better than these isolated settlements with their careless, nearly defenceless inhabitants, the by-ways and wastes that separate them. When he has once killed a man, and has discovered the creature’s feebleness, those horrors so often recorded follow as matters of course. Henceforth, nobody is safe beyond the walls of his town or dwelling. Occasionally not even there, for the man-eater combines the extremes of conduct,—excessive wariness and desperate audacity.
There is no necessity to multiply references as to the fact that these tigers are audacious,—that is generally known to be the case; but it is well to remember in connection with their relations to mankind, that they are apt to become panic-stricken at anything which appears strange and unaccountable. Colonel Pollok preserves an incident (“Sport in British Burmah”) which illustrates their enterprise, and yet shows how they become confused, incapable, and appalled by whatever is beyond comprehension,—a feature in the animal’s character, by the way, which is much more creditable to its intellect than derogatory to its courage.
Hill, the officer to whom the adventure happened, relates his own experiences. He was out with a body of native troops after some Shan mutineers at the time, and in a country that Crawfurd, Colonel Yule, Hallett, Colquhoun, etc., speak of as much infested by tigers. At Yonzaleem a report was brought to him that a scourge of this kind was in the neighborhood, and that fifteen men had been killed in a month; but duty called, and there was no time in which to go hunting. “We were travelling along a mountain pathway fringed with bamboo-like grass,” Hill says, “and I was leading the way about thirty paces, perhaps, in front of the party, followed at a little distance by my lugelay, or Burmese boy, carrying my loaded gun. I had nothing in my hand but my oak stick, but you know what a shillelah it is, and what a thundering blow can be given with it. It was still early, and as I was trudging along carelessly, the men behind me jabbering and talking, I heard a slight noise on the edge of the pathway to my right; for a second I paid no attention to it, but thinking it might be a jungle-fowl or a pheasant, I beckoned to the boy to give me my gun. He had loitered behind, and before he could reach me, by slow degrees out came the head of an enormous tiger, close to me, almost within hitting distance. Unfortunately my lad, and the Burmese escort, saw it too, and halted, calling out ‘The tiger! the tiger! he will be killed! he will be killed!’ meaning me. I did not take my eyes off the tiger’s, but put my hand behind my back, saying in Burmese to the boy, ‘Give me my gun;’ but he and the others only kept jabbering, ‘He will be killed! he will be killed!’ Not a man stirred, though they were all armed and loaded. So there we were, the tiger and I, face to face. At last, thinking to frighten it away, I lifted the stick and pretended to hit it a back-handed blow, at the same time making a sort of yelling noise. The stick was over my left shoulder, but so far from being intimidated, the tiger rushed at me, and I caught him a blow on the side of the head and floored him.
“Seeing him pick himself up with his back towards me, I thought he was going to bolt, and for the first time turned round, and said, ‘Now give me my gun.’ Before the words were well out of my mouth, my stick was sent flying, my right hand pinned to my side by one of his hind claws, and one of his fore-paws on my shoulder and back, and he stood over me growling in a most diabolical manner. I bent my back, stuck out my legs, and with my left arm struck towards my right shoulder at the brute’s face, which was towering over me, snarling and growling like the very devil. Suddenly, with an infernal roar, he struck me on the neck, and down I went as if I had been shot, the tiger turning a somersault over me, and falling on his back. In a second, in my endeavors to get up, I was on my hands and knees, the blood pouring over my face, beard and chest, giving me, I have no doubt, a most satanic appearance. As the tiger recovered we met face to face. He looked at me, seemed to think that by some strange metamorphosis, from a two-legged man, whom he despised, I had become some kind of a four-legged monster like himself, put his tail between his legs, and bolted for his life.”