Tamba, the Tame Tiger: His Many Adventures

by Richard Barnum

And, indeed, Tamba was lucky in more ways than one.

But, with all that, Tamba did not have a very good time on board the ship. In the first place he knew he had to stay in hiding, if he did not want to be seen, and, perhaps, shut up in a cage again, or, for all he knew, be sent back to the circus. The tame tiger could not go out on deck, as the passengers did, and breathe the fresh air and see the sunshine. Poor Tamba had to stay down in the dark hold, hiding among the boxes and barrels.

And another thing was that he was hungry. After the first day when the ship was at sea, the tiger began to want more meat. Even though he had taken a good meal from the pile of beef on the wagon, that could not last very long.

So, after the second night Tamba began to prowl about in the hold of the ship, looking for something to eat. He caught some big rats and ate them, and if the men who owned the ship had known that they would have been glad. For rats on ships do much damage, and eat some of the cargo. So Tamba ate the rats, but they were hardly enough. He wanted more.

Then, one day he got a meal very unexpectedly. One of the sailors, who, perhaps, was as hungry as Tamba, took a big piece of meat from the “galley,” as the kitchen on a ship is called. And the sailor, who had no right to take this meat, stole away to eat it all by himself, so the cook wouldn’t see him and scold him.

And, as it happened, the sailor picked out the same hold in which Tamba was hiding to come to eat his bit of meat which had been taken from the galley.

Now Tamba was very hungry just about that time, and when the sailor happened to sit down on a barrel, behind which Tamba was hiding, and began to eat the meat, the tame tiger smelled it. The tiger very much wanted some for himself.

Tamba peered out and saw the sailor sitting with the big chunk of cooked meat on the barrel beside him.

“That’s more than he needs,” thought Tamba, after the sailor had eaten a bit. “I’ll take the rest. I don’t believe he’ll mind.”

So Tamba reached up his paw, hooked his sharp claws into the meat, and pulled it down toward his hungry mouth. The sailor turned just in time to see his meat sliding off the barrel.