Upon several occasions this terrible attack had been enacted, and the traffic was entirely stopped. A large reward was offered by the Government, but without effect; the man-eater never could be found by any of the shikaris.
At length the Superintendent of Police, Mr. Duff, who unfortunately had lost one arm by a gun accident, determined to make an effort at its destruction, and he adroitly arranged a plan that would be a fatal trap, and catch the tiger in its own snare. He obtained two covered carts, each drawn as usual by two bullocks. The leading cart was fitted in front and behind with strong bars of lashed bamboo, which formed an impervious cage; in this the driver was seated, while Mr. Duff himself sat with his face towards the rear, prepared to fire through the bars should the tiger, according to its custom, attack the driver of the rearmost cart. This would have been an exciting moment for the driver, but Mr. Duff had carefully prepared a dummy, dressed exactly to personate the usual native carter; the bullocks, being well trained, would follow closely in the rear of the leading cart, from which a splendid shot would be obtained should the tiger venture upon an attack.
All went well; the road was desolate, bordered by jungle upon one side, and wild grass-land upon the other. They had now reached the locality where the dreaded danger lay, and slowly the carts moved along the road in their usual apathetic manner. This must have been an exciting moment, and Mr. Duff was no doubt thoroughly on the lookout. Suddenly there was a roar; a large tiger bounded from the jungle, and with extraordinary quickness seized the dummy driver from his seat upon the rearmost cart, and dragged the unresisting victim towards the jungle!
Nothing could have been better planned, but one chance had been forgotten, which was necessary to success. No sooner had the tiger roared, and bounded upon the cart, than the affrighted bullocks, terrified by the dreadful sound, at once stampeded off the road, and went full gallop across country, followed by Mr. Duff's bullocks in the wildest panic. It was impossible to fire, and after a few seconds of desperate chariot race, both carts capsized among the numerous small nullahs of the broken ground, where bullocks and vehicles lay in superlative confusion; the victorious man-eater was left to enjoy rather a dry meal of a straw-stuffed carter, instead of a juicy native which he had expected.
This was a disappointment to all parties concerned, except the dummy driver, who was of course unmoved by the failure of the arrangement.
The story is thoroughly authenticated, and has been told to me by the Commissioner of the district exactly as I have described it. The tiger was subsequently killed by a native shikari, when watching from a tree over a tied buffalo.
Although the tiger as a "man-eater" is a terrible scourge, and frequently inflicts incredible loss upon the population of a district, there are tigers in existence which would never attack a human being, although they exist upon the cattle of the villages, and have every opportunity of seizing women and children in their immediate neighbourhood. About nine years ago there was a well-known animal of this character at a place called Bhundra in the Jubbulpur district, which was supposed to have killed upwards of 500 of the natives' cattle. This was a peculiarly large tiger, but so harmless to man that he was regarded merely in the light of a cattle-lifter, and neither woman nor child dreaded its appearance. The natives assured me that during fourteen years it had been the common object of pursuit, both by officers, civilians, and by their own shikaris, but as the tiger was possessed by the devil it was quite impossible to destroy it. This possession by an evil spirit is a common belief, and in this instance the people spoke of it as a matter of course that admitted of no argument; they assured me that the tiger was frequently met by the natives, and that it invariably passed them in a friendly manner without the slightest demonstration of hostility, but that it took away a cow or bullock in the most regular manner every fourth day. It varied its attentions, and having killed a few head of cattle belonging to one village, it would change the locality for a week or two, and, take toll from those within a radius of four or five miles, always returning to the same haunts, and occupying or laying up in the same jungle. The great peculiarity of this particular tiger consisted in the extreme contempt for fire-arms: it exposed itself almost without exception when driven by a line of beaters, and when shot at it simply escaped, only to reappear upon the following day. I was informed that everybody that had gone after it had obtained a shot, but bullets were of no use against a devil, therefore it was always missed.
I was 30 miles distant when I heard of this tiger, and I immediately directed our course towards Bhundra. It was a pretty and interesting place, where the presence of rich hematite iron ore has from time immemorial induced a settlement of smelters. There are jungle-covered low hills upon which large trees are growing, yet all such important mounds are composed of refuse from furnaces, which were worked some hundred years ago.
We arrived there early in May during the hottest season, and the clear stream below the village, rushing over a rocky bed, was a sufficient attraction to entice the animals from a great distance. This would account for the permanent residence of tigers.
The headman was a Thakur, a person of importance, and, as our camp had been sent forward on the previous day, we found everything in readiness upon our arrival; the Thakur and his people were in attendance.