Anecdotes of Big Cats and Other Beasts. David Alec Wilson

the eyes of a tiger, shining through the blackness of the utter dark, are a phenomenon hard to forget, if once you see them. In this instance, whatever strange light shone in them may have been intensified by the glare of the camp-fire reflected in those glistening optics. But no such addition was possible in another case credibly reported to me and of more recent date in the extreme north of Burma. A tiger ventured into the sepoy lines one night, and entering the open door of a hut, it killed and [39] carried away a man asleep in bed. His comrades chased and mobbed the beast, which dropped the corpse and escaped. The sepoys, taking counsel together, put out the lights and hushed all noises, as if everyone was asleep; and in fact they were back in their huts, and the door of the dead man’s dwelling stood open as before. Only, in ambush, below or beside the bed, in a dark corner, a brave man was waiting, rifle ready; and the tiger did come back to that identical door that night, and was shot, exactly as the sepoys had hoped. What lingers in the memory best, of all the details of that adventure, is that the man who lay in wait told a magistrate, who told me, that when the tiger came, all he saw was “the eyes in the doorway, shining into the room like two coloured lamps, filling the room with tinted light.” So he felt that hiding was impossible and “banged away.”

      One other remark may be intercalated, to let readers realise what is what. Even to men of experience in tiger attacks, the swift suddenness of events is a continual surprise. The tiger practises “surprise tactics,” and his attack often is, and always is when he can manage it, like a railway collision—it takes long to tell, but only a few seconds to happen.

      Let us now return to Mr. Allan’s journal.

[40] “Early next morning, as soon as it was light enough to see, I started to look for the body of the cook, and found it not ten paces from where he had been cooking. The jungle, as I said before, was very thick, so we could not see it at night.”

      (The tiger must have dropped the corpse when Mr. Allan fired. He had therefore lost his supper. Probably enough that was why he continued prowling round.—D. W.)

      “The tiger had caught the cook by the head as the sweeper had said, for one fang had gone into his right eye and had knocked it out, another had gone into his throat just below the chin, and two had gone into the skull and neck at the back. So it must have taken the whole head into its mouth, for it was a pulp with the brains coming out.

      “We dug a shallow grave for the poor old cook and buried him, and then left that forest as fast as the men could lay legs to the ground, for nothing would induce them to stop another hour. … They yelled and shouted till they got right clear of the forest.

      “In leaving the forest no one wanted to be the last in the line for fear of being taken from the back, so I brought up the rear.”

It only remains to be added that in 1895, though [41] the tigers “remained as usual,” Mr. Allan finished the demarcation work so tragically interrupted, and even took his wife to see the grave of the cook.

5. THE CHARGE OF THE TIGRESS

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      Coming to 1909, there is an episode in his Shikar-Book about a tigress, which for various reasons may be transcribed:—

“… 14th April.—I started up to inspect the Banbwebin fire line … accompanied by my wife … an Indian and two Burmans. … After we had gone about five miles up the … path, … we heard bamboos being broken. The Burmans said there must be a herd of wild elephants feeding on the flowered bamboos. I thought they might possibly be bison or a rhinoceros, so walked on to see what they really were. The Indian was walking ahead of me, and I was following, looking down the side of the hill from which the sound of the bamboos being broken came, when Barhan, the Indian peon, stopped and said ‘Bag’ (tiger). I looked up and saw the tiger crossing the path about sixty paces ahead of me, so … had a quick shot at it. On which it turned round and came down the hill straight at me. … [42] My wife, who was just behind me, on seeing it come down the hill, called out, ‘It is coming.’ … It came on, and when less than thirty paces from me I fired the second barrel and knocked it over. After receiving the shot it fell and lay on the ground, trying to drag itself towards us. … It put its head up and snarled and showed its teeth. … The Burmans, who were very excited, kept on saying, ‘Give it another shot quick, or it will get up and do for us.’ So after a bit I put in another cartridge and walked up a few paces and gave it a bullet in the chest and finished it off.

      “After giving it a shot in the chest I walked round and got above it, and then approached cautiously with my gun at the ready to give it another shot if necessary; but after throwing a clod or two of earth at it, and finding that it did not move, I walked up and pulled its tail, and when I found that it was dead I called out to my wife, who was close by all the time, and she came up.

“We found it to be a tigress … measuring eight feet and five inches as she lay. … The first shot had missed and the second … caught her at the point of the shoulder. On looking at my gun, I found that the 200 yards leaf sight had got pushed up, and that made me shoot high. I [43] was carrying the gun in my right hand, but holding it across my back, and in pulling it forward in a hurry, the leaf sight had got pushed up, and I did not notice it in the excitement of the moment. …

      “Maung Nita, one of the Burmans who was with me, said, ‘Sir, if you had not finished her with the second shot we would all have been lying kicking on the ground.’

      “As three men were not able to lift her, my wife rode back to our camp and called other eight men, and they slung her on poles and carried her into camp.

      “On dissecting the tigress, I found that she had nothing in her stomach and appeared to have had no food for some time. She was evidently out shikaring (hunting), and was after the animals that I heard breaking bamboos.” …

      In a private letter to me at the time, Mr. Allan wrote:—

“… Had I missed the second shot she would have had us. … She was very angry. She was hungry and meant business. On opening her we found that she … had evidently not had a meal for some days.” … This illustrates a truth which is often forgotten by us. The big beasts live from [44] hand to mouth, like improvident working men. A dog may bury a bone, a tiger return to a kill, and a leopard has been known to put half a corpse or an unfinished bit of venison up a tree for security. But beyond the next meal they never look. It is only the insects of the universe, like ants and bees, or such animals as squirrels, that practise thrift. Hence arose the Jewish proverb about considering the ways of the ant in order to be wise. There is no such lesson to be learned from the cat.

      One can be sorry for the tigress all the same. Think of her empty stomach, and perhaps hungry cubs in her lair; and then this big, strong Englishman, with his diabolical machinery in his hand, molesting her as she was stalking the wild cattle. “She meant business,” said he. Of course she did. Did anyone think she was hunting for amusement?

      No matter now! Her body lies inert enough, a subject for their inquisitive knives to her indifferent.

Put yourself in the skin of that tigress, if you can. Think what a gunshot means to a wild beast, and consider how, when fired at, she “faced the music” in the real sense of that phrase, and went “straight at the guns,” as gallantly as the Light Brigade at Balaklava. As even the enemy notes—“After [45] receiving the shot, _it fell and lay on the ground, trying to drag itself towards us. … It put its head up and snarled and showed its