The red book of animal stories/On the Trail of a Man-eater

ON THE TRAIL OF A MAN-EATER

Fifty years ago, when Colonel Gordon Cumming, then a young man, was sent out to join his regiment in the country of the Mahrattas, India was full of tigers, bears, wild boars, and other fierce beasts, who were the terror of the native villages. The district is hilly and rocky, and abounds in livers and thick jungles, which afford shelter for even the largest animals, who would comedown at night and carry off goats, oxen, or even men. The English soldiers asked nothing better than to be allowed to put a stop to this state of things, and many were the adventures that happened to them in their shooting expeditions.

Here and there, indeed, an old man was to be found who, like old Kamah, was at peace with the tigers, and looked on any injury done them as an insult to himself. ‘I have no quarrel with tigers,’ he exclaimed indignantly, when the hunters found him beating his fifteen-year-old son for shooting a tiger who had carried off a tame buffalo. ‘I live in the jungle, and the tigers are my friends. I never injured one of them, they never injured me; and while there was peace between us I went among them without fear. But now, now——’

Kamah’s view of the tigers was, however, not common; and, in general, the natives would gladly turn out to help in hunting down their natural enemies.

Sometimes platforms were built in the trees, carefully chosen near the track the tiger was likely to follow, but this was not always very safe, for tigers are great jumpers, and, when maddened by wounds, have been known to pull down a man in a tree. This happened once in an expe-

CUMMING’S CAP FRIGHTENS THE TIGER

dition of Colonel Gordon Cumming’s, when he took his stand with his gun-bearer on some branches which grew about eight feet up the stem of a tall tree. The tree was on a slope, close to a small rocky ravine, and beyond the ravine was a jungle in which lay the tiger.

The two men had not waited long before they saw a black and yellow body moving at a brisk trot, on the further side of the ravine, having been roused from his lair by the natives. Gordon Cumming fired, but the shot only wounded the tiger slightly, and he turned and plunged into the jungle. The hunter, having fired the other three balls after him, without touching him at all, gave him up for lost, and did not even reload his gun. Suddenly there was a cry that the tiger was coming back, and, sure enough, there he was crossing the ravine, and making for the slope. When he reached the tree he stood still. There was no time to load; all they could do was to sit quiet, hardly daring to breathe, hoping that the tiger would pass them by. And most likely he would have done so had not the native whispered in a low voice that the tiger was below. The beast looked up, and with a flying leap landed on the trunk of the tree, close to the man’s legs. Digging his long claws firmly into the bark, he seized the poor fellow’s waist-cloth in his teeth, and dragged him to the ground, biting him severely in the thigh as they rolled over together. The Scotchman did all he could to scare the tiger, by shouting and by flinging his cap straight in his face; this startled the animal, and, letting go his prey, he ran down the hill. Gordon Cumming then came hastily to see if Foorsut was badly hurt, and found that there were twelve severe wounds at the back of the thigh. He was put on a litter of twisted boughs, and carried back to the camp to have his wounds dressed by a native doctor, and then the officers both mounted an elephant and went in chase of the tiger. He had not gone very far, and one shot soon disposed of him. He was a good, large specimen, about ten or eleven feet long, and made a fine skin.

As to the unlucky Foorsut, who had nothing but his own folly to thank for his injuries, he seemed doing well, and to have escaped any injuries to his leg bone. His friends were quite happy about him till the morning of the second day, when his fingers began suddenly to twitch, and by four that afternoon Foorsut was dead.

Some time after this adventure Colonel Gordon Cumming was sent to do some work in the country beyond the Nerbudda, which was, at that period overrun with tigers. The animals found shelter in the broken ground, covered with high grass and sharp, prickly shrubs, from which they would steal out to attack cattle and sometimes men.

One day a villager came to Colonel Gordon Cumming, and told him that a tiger had rushed out and killed a man who had been gathering gum from a tree, in company with two friends; and they, being unarmed, could do nothing to save him.

As it was almost sunset, and the man was known to be dead, nothing was done that night; but as soon as it was light next morning, Gordon Cumming, with two officers, rode off to the jungle. Here some men were waiting with guns and elephants, and the place of attack being arranged, they went first to the gum trees where the man had met his death.

His body was still lying on the ground, bloody where the tiger’s teeth had torn it, but otherwise untouched, which looked as if the tigers had all gone elsewhere. However, men were sent up the trees to report if anything was to be seen, and the British officers took up their positions and advanced into the jungle.

They had not gone very far before a huge tiger sprung out of a watercourse where it had been hiding, and dashed up the bank. He was too far off to hit with certainty, and the bullets sent after him only put him out of temper, and he growled loudly as he disappeared into the nearest thicket. The hunters followed on his track at a safe distance, and once they caught sight of him, but again he was off, and was reported by the men in the trees to have hidden in some bushes on the edge of a ravine. Slowly the elephants followed in his trail, when suddenly

THE ELEPHANT TRIED TO GORE THE TIGER WITH HIS TUSKS

the tiger broke away from his hiding place, about eighty yards away. They fired, and this time he was touched, but not badly. Taking refuge again in the bushes, he was lost to view.

Reloading their guns, the officers were entering the jungle, when the tiger started up in front, not twenty yards away, and came on with a rush. A bullet checked his advance for a moment, but he charged again, and the riders expected to see him the next instant grappling with the elephants. But, instead, he sprang right through the animals, and disappeared in the ravine.

Very cautiously the British officers went after him, searching each patch of grass and clump of bushes, lest he should be hidden there. But no tiger was to be found anywhere. At last they had reached the top of the ravine, which was almost filled by a huge green bush, and, though by this time they all felt nearly sure the tiger must have escaped them, they determined to know what was behind that bush. The green leaves were already tickling the elephant’s trunk, when it was seized by the tiger, who held it fast between his teeth, while he dug his claws deep into the animal’s face. The elephant, mad with pain, gave a frightful shriek, and tried to gore the tiger with his tusks, which was not so easy; and in his frantic plunges the driver ran a great risk of being thrown from his seat, and trampled to death between them. At length a furious shake forced the tiger to loosen his hold, and he turned and fled down the ravine, while the elephant danced with passion on the bank. When he had grown a little calmer, they all turned and went after the tiger.

He was at last brought to bay a hundred yards further down, and this time sprang straight at the head of one of the other elephants. But the shots he had already received were now beginning to tell, and his attack was not so fierce as before. Another ball ended his struggles; he let go the elephant’s trunk, and, rolling heavily on the ground, turned over quite dead.