From among the numerous records of successful encounter with tigers, let us select that of
LIEUT. EVAN DAVIES,
Which occurred while the British army was lying at Agoada, near Goa, 1809. A report was one morning brought to the cantonment that a very large tiger had been seen on the rocks near the sea. About nine o’clock a number of horses and men assembled at the spot where it was said to have been seen, when, after some search, the animal was discovered to be in the recess of an immense rock; dogs were sent in in the hope of starting him, but without effect, having returned with several wounds. Finding it impossible to dislodge the animal by such means, Lieut. Davies, of the 7th regiment, attempted to enter the den, but was obliged to return, finding the passage extremely narrow and dark. He attempted it, however, a second time, with a pick-axe in his hand, with which he removed some obstructions that were in the way. Having proceeded a few yards he heard a noise which he conceived to be that of the animal. He then returned, and communicated with Lieut. Threw, of the Artillery, who also went in the same distance, and was of a similar opinion. What course to pursue was doubtful. Some proposed to blow up the rock; others, to smoke the animal out. At length a port-fire was tied to the end of a bamboo, and introduced into a small crevice which led towards the den. Lieut. Davies went on hands and knees down the narrow passage which led to it, and by the light of his torch he was enabled to discover the animal. Having returned, he said he could kill him with a pistol, which, being procured, he again entered the cave and fired, but without success, owing to the awkward situation in which he was placed, having only his left hand at liberty. He next went with a musket and bayonet, and wounded the tiger in the loins; but he was obliged to retreat as quickly as the narrow passage would allow, the tiger having rushed forward and forced the musket back towards the mouth of the den. Lieut. Davies next procured a rifle, with which he again forced his way into the cave, and taking deliberate aim at the tiger’s head, fired, and put an end to its existence. He afterwards tied a strong rope round the neck of the tiger, by which it was dragged out, to the no small satisfaction of a numerous crowd of spectators. The animal measured seven feet in length.
Combats with wild elephants are still more dangerous than with the tiger. From the following account given by a sojourner in India, the extreme hazard attending such enterprises will be seen, while a reflection can scarcely fail to arise on the wondrous superiority of man’s sagacity which has enabled him to reduce this mightiest of land animals to docile servitude.
“We had intelligence,” says the narrator, “of an immense wild elephant being in a large grass swamp within five miles of us. He had inhabited the swamp for years, and was the terror of the surrounding villagers, many of whom he had killed. He had only one tusk; and there was not a village for many miles round that did not know the ‘Burrah ek durt ke Hathee,’ or the large one-toothed elephant; and one of our party had the year before been charged and his elephant put to the right-about by this famous fellow. We determined to go in pursuit of him; and accordingly on the third day after our arrival, started in the morning, mustering, between private and government elephants, thirty-two, but seven of them only with sportsmen on their backs. As we knew that in the event of the wild one charging he would probably turn against the male elephants, the drivers of two or three of the largest were armed with spears. On our way to the swamp we shot a great number of different sorts of game that got up before the line of elephants, and had hardly entered the swamp when, in consequence of one of the party firing at a partridge, we saw the great object of our expedition. The wild elephant got up out of some long grass about two hundred and fifty yards before us, when he stood staring at us and flapping his huge ears. We immediately made a line of the elephants with the sportsmen in the centre, and went straight up to him until within a hundred and thirty yards, when, fearing he was going to turn from us, all the party gave him a volley, some of us firing two, three, and four barrels. He then turned round, and made for the middle of the swamp. The chase now commenced, and after following him upwards of a mile, with our elephants up to their bellies in mud, we succeeded in turning him to the edge of the swamp, where he allowed us to get within eighty yards of him, when we gave him another volley in his full front, on which he made a grand charge at us, but fortunately only grazed one of the pad elephants. He then made again for the middle of the swamp, throwing up blood and water from his trunk, and making a terrible noise, which clearly showed that he had been severely wounded. We followed him, and were obliged to swim our elephants through a piece of deep stagnant water, occasionally giving shot, when making a stop in some very high grass he allowed us again to come within sixty yards, and got another volley, on which he made a second charge more furious than the first, but was prevented making it good by some shots fired when very close to us, which stunned and fortunately turned him. He then made for the edge of the swamp, again swimming a piece of water, through which we followed with considerable difficulty in consequence of our pads and howdahs having become much heavier from the soaking they had got twice before. We were up to the middle in the howdahs, and one of the elephants fairly turned over and threw the rider and his guns into the water. He was taken off by one of the pad elephants, but his three guns went to the bottom. This accident took up some time, during which the wild elephant had made his way to the edge of the swamp, and stood perfectly still looking at us and trumpeting with his trunk. As soon as we got all to rights we again advanced with the elephants in the form of a crescent, in the full expectation of a desperate charge, nor were we mistaken. The animal now allowed us to come within forty yards of him, when we took a very deliberate aim at his head, and, on receiving this fire, he made a most furious charge, in the act of which, and when within ten yards of some of us, he received his mortal wound and fell dead as a stone. His death-wound on examination proved to be from a small ball over the left eye, for this was the only one of thirty-one that he had received in his head, which was found to have entered the brain. When down he measured in height twelve feet four inches; in length, from the root of the tail to the top of the head, sixteen feet; and ten feet round the neck. He had upwards of eighty balls in his head and body. His only remaining tusk when taken out weighed thirty-six pounds, and, when compared with the tusks of tame elephants, was considered small for the size of the animal. After he fell a number of villagers came about us, and were rejoiced at the death of their formidable enemy, and assured us that during the last four or five years he had killed nearly fifty men; indeed, the knowledge of the mischief he had occasioned was the only thing which could reconcile us to the death of so noble an animal.”
Exciting as such accounts of contest with powerful land animals are, they yield in depth of interest to the records of the whale fishery. The potent combination of human courage and intelligence is so fully manifested by an excellent description of these daring but well ordered enterprises, contained in one of the volumes of the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, that we present it to the young reader almost entire:—