The tigers used to come so close to the camp in those days that once while the servants were washing the plates after dinner a big tiger passed by. I took my eldest girl when she was quite small to one of the camps, and about midnight we heard tigers roaring, it seemed as if they were just outside my tent. “Mummy,” called Girlie, “I am so frightened, may I hold your finger?” and when she held it she was quite comforted; she thought her mother’s weak finger was a protection from the tiger’s roaring. I remember listening one night to tigers fighting, and very terrifying were the sounds. The roar of the tiger in his forest home is very different from his growl and snarl in captivity.
I was with my husband when I first saw a tiger shot. Just before we left the camp the Maharajah made me promise not to pull his arm nor touch his gun. I promised, but when I heard the tiger and saw our elephant moving his ears, my good resolutions fled, and I began to pull first my husband’s arm and then his coat. Even now I can see his amused smile as he looked back at me.
The grass grows very high in the jungle, but it is burned down in patches, usually in February so that the young grass can grow. The jungle was always very fascinating to me; the trees covered with wild orchids, the sweet air, are lovely to look back upon; in those wilds we could read “the book of nature ever open.”
We lunched at mid-day under the trees. One day I got off my elephant to look at a little village. A crowd of the villagers had assembled, and one of them begged me, as the “Mother,” to honour his cottage with the “dust of my feet.” I complied at once, and as I was going in my host lifted the mantle from his shoulders and placed it on the ground, saying as he did so: “Will the ‘Mother’ stand on this?” When this ceremony was completed his family came to pay their respects. “My home is greatly honoured by the presence of Lakshmi,” he said gravely. I was touched by this simple ceremony, and glad to find this village home so clean. There was a garden well stocked with fruit and vegetables. All was happiness and content, and as I looked at the clear flowing river and the background of forest, I felt as near Peace as I should ever be.
One evening I was returning to camp with a friend who had made a very unhappy marriage. He told me some of his troubles, and as the elephant made its way through the jungle we heard the thin, sad notes of a flute. The air was very still. Soon we saw the player, a shepherd, who was standing on a little hill, against the fading light. He looked so peaceful and happy.
As we listened and looked my friend sighed: “Oh, I’d give anything to be in his place.”
One season Count Waldstein of Austria came out to see India and do a little shooting; we all liked him very much, he was a most charming boy. He did not seem very strong, but was very keen on shooting tigers. He went out to camp, but came back with fever and the doctors ordered him up to Darjeeling, where the poor boy died. I have since met his mother; her affectionate heart has drawn me nearer to her than hundreds of the ladies I have met, and her love touched me. I prize her letters more than I can say.
Sir Benjamin Simpson, who was one of the guardians of the Maharajah, took many photographs of the shooting-parties at Cooch Behar. An English maid, after she left me, was staying in a house in Scotland and said she saw some of the pictures on the films, to her surprise. An Englishman has published a book about his shooting in India, and has put into it as illustrations many of the photographs of our shooting camps, calling them his own! The amusing part is that the Maharajah’s guests, A.D.C.’s, and staff are in the groups, which the gentleman could not alter.
In our shoots tigers, rhinoceros, buffaloes, leopards, panthers, bears, bisons, boars, and deer of all kinds fell before the guns, and made a grand “bag” at the end of the day’s sport. Once when I was out with my husband after rhinoceros, some wild orchids attracted my attention, and I cried out longingly, “Can’t I have some of those orchids?” The Maharajah laughingly answered: “Rhino comes first, Sunity.”