"There are not as many tigers in India now as there were twenty years ago," said the captain, "thanks to the perseverance of the hunters and the bounties offered by the Government; but we have quite enough of them left, as you will understand when I tell you that in the Madras presidency alone, for the quarter ending September 30th of last year, the destruction by tigers and leopards amounted to 366 bullocks, 413 cows, 151 calves, 87 buffaloes, 112 sheep, 114 goats, 20 horses or ponies, and 15 donkeys. The number of human lives destroyed in the same time is not stated, but it is officially recorded that in six years 13,401 people were killed by wild beasts in the Bengal presidency; 4218 of them by tigers, 4287 by wolves, 1407 by leopards, and 105 by bears; the rest by other wild animals. In the year 1871 the total number of deaths in India by snakes and wild animals was 18,078, and about three-fourths of these were caused by snakes; in 1869, 14,529 persons lost their lives by snake-bites, and you therefore see that serpents are more dangerous than tigers.
"A tiger that has once tasted human flesh is ever afterward disinclined to hunt for other game. He has learned how easy it is to kill a man, and how little risk he runs in doing so, and his instinctive dread of the human race seems to disappear altogether. Such a tiger is known as a 'man-eater;' he lies close to the paths where the natives pass and pounces upon them suddenly, and he has the shrewdness to change his locality a little after each slaughter. It is officially reported that in one district a man-eating tiger killed 127 persons in a short time, and caused a complete suspension of business on the road for many weeks. Another tiger killed 150 persons in three years, compelled the abandonment of many villages, and threw 250 square miles of country out of cultivation. The Government offered a thousand dollars for the head of this tiger, and he was finally killed by an officer of the army.
"There are several ways of killing the tiger," the captain continued, "and every hunter of experience and daring tries them all. The safest plan for a novice is to still-hunt, or bait, as we call it, and for this purpose we find where a tiger has killed a bullock and partly eaten him. We know he will return to finish his meal, or rather to make another; if there is a tree near by, we rig up a shelter and resting-place among the limbs, and early in the evening climb up there and wait. We have a couple of sharp-eyed natives with us, and they keep a steady watch for the beast. Sometimes he comes at dusk, sometimes two or three hours later, and sometimes not at all, and you have your night's watch in a tree for nothing; but if he comes you must be very careful about your aim, and try to bring him down at the first shot, since you are very unlikely to get a second. It is no easy matter to shoot a tiger in the dim light that you have under the circumstances, and many a skilful hunter has had the chagrin of seeing the brute escape.
TIGER HUNTING FROM A MYCHAN, OR SHOOTING-BOX.
"The native princes have a way of hunting tigers from mychans, or stands, but it is not much practised by Europeans. The stands are placed along a valley where a tiger is likely to run when driven from his retreat in the jungle, and some of these runs are so well known that the mychans are permanently built of stone, and fitted up with more or less luxury. I was once invited by a native prince to join him in a hunt of this sort, and of course I accepted. We were in a kind of fort on the bank of a stream, and while waiting for the tiger we were seated in comfortable arm-chairs, and received the liberal hospitality of the prince. After an hour or two the beaters who had been sent out succeeded in driving up a fine tiger; we heard the sound of their drums and tom-toms coming nearer and nearer, and suddenly out rushed the tiger and made for the water. The prince fired, and I also fired; but somehow the beast got away, though, we felt sure he was wounded.
"Some of the native princes will not allow the tigers on their property to be killed by Englishmen, but preserve them for their own hunting. They have even been known to let loose two or three tame tigers when they have a distinguished guest to entertain, and wish to make sure that he will have game to shoot at. Once, when a native prince was entertaining an English officer of high rank, he got up a grand tiger-hunt after the fashion I have just described, and the tigers came so near that two of them were killed by the guest. When the second was shot the whole party went from the mychan to where the dead animal was lying. The prince was embarrassed, and the guest astonished, to find that the tiger had a collar around his neck, with the name of the former engraved on it.
"Another way of hunting the tiger is with elephants, and the more of them you have the better. It is a very expensive mode of hunting, as it requires a great number of men and elephants, and therefore is not very common. When the Prince of Wales was here there was a grand tiger-hunt, in which he took part; there were several of these expeditions, in fact, but the greatest of all was given by Sir Jung Bahadoor, a native prince of enormous wealth. Five hundred and odd elephants were brought out on that occasion, and the spectacle was one of the finest ever seen in the country."