IV Where Tigers Flourish
1. Tigers in the Air
In 1895, while doing Forest Settlement work in the Upper Chindwin district of Upper Burma, I lived in an atmosphere of tigers. Hardly a day passed without seeing or hearing some sign of them. It was a great disappointment, both to my companion and colleague, Mr Bruce, Deputy Conservator of Forests, and to myself to finish our long journeyings without a single encounter. We spared no pains to compass one; but we were going fast, with a troop of elephants for baggage, and were being met at many points by crowds of men on business; so that it was not a surprise, although it was a disappointment, to miss seeing “our friend the enemy” at home. The tiger, as we were well aware, might say with Tommy Atkins that he is fighting for meat and not for glory; and when, in seeking dinner, he caught sight of an enemy that seemed dangerous, he was bound to behave like Brer Rabbit, to lie low and say nothing. The jungle was continuous, and in parts so thick that he might at times have been lying within spitting distance and remained unseen and unsuspected.
No doubt the tigers saw us many a time, though we saw none of them. The villagers, in order to feel safe, went about in twos and threes or in larger parties, like London policemen in the slums. Whenever two parties met, they discussed the latest news of tigers. Among a crowd of items, I well recollect that both Mr Dickinson, the Conservator, and Mr Bruce had much to tell me about the fine performances of C. W. Allan of their department that year there, and of his experiences in 1894.
As “half a word fixed, upon or near the spot, is worth a cart-load of recollection,” according to authority, I have persuaded Mr Allan, now Deputy Conservator at Henzada, to let me publish a few extracts from his Shikar-Book, a contemporary record. It may be as well to mention that, knowing him well, I believe what he wrote as firmly as if I had seen it all myself, and that it tallies completely with what was told me in 1895.
2. Tigers Victorious
[Extract From the “Shikar-Book” of C. W. Allan]
“During the month of March, 1894, I had to go out into the Kubo Valley, in the Kindat Forest Division, Upper Chindwin, to do the demarcation of the Khanpat Reserve. On the 16th I arrived at the village of Thinzin and halted there the 17th to collect coolies to do the work, which I found to be no easy matter. On inquiring the reason, I was told that there was a man-eater tiger in that part of the forest, and that it had killed three men within the last six weeks, and that people were afraid to go anywhere near the forest. This was very unpleasant news. However, the work had to be done and men must be found, so I ordered the Thugyi (village headman) to hurry up and get them, and told him that there was nothing to be afraid of as I had five guns with me and could look after the men.
“On questioning the Thugyi about the man-eater, he informed me that the first man killed was a mahout (elephant driver) employed by the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation. This man was carried off in the Pyoungbok stream. He and another man had gone out to look for their elephant, which had been fettered and turned out to graze. And it was whilst following up the drag of the chain that the tiger sprang on to the mahout who was leading, and was carrying a gun on his shoulder, and carried him off. The man who was following the mahout was carrying a dah (big knife) in his hand, and was just behind the mahout. He was so taken aback that he could do nothing to save his companion, so ran away and informed some other men who were encamped close by. But they were too frightened to go and look for the mahout. And it would not have been much good their going, for by the time they got to the place the tiger would have finished his meal and moved off.
“The second man carried off was also a mahout in the service of the B. B. T. C. He was also carried off much in the same manner from the Nansawin stream, and within ten days of the date the first man was killed. This mahout was out with a party of some six men hunting for fish in the stream, when the tiger sprang on to him from the bank and carried him off before the other men could do anything. They too did not attempt to save their comrade, but made tracks out of that stream as fast as their legs could carry them.
“The third man killed was a Burmese policeman. A party of six constables were out on patrol, and had camped for the night under a large teak tree between the Pyoungbok and Nansawin streams. About four o’clock in the morning one of the men had got up and lit a fire, and put on a pot of rice to boil for their breakfast, and had lain down again beside the other men, intending to have another forty winks. He had barely laid himself down when a tiger sneaked up behind the tree they were sleeping under and seized the end man by the waist and carried him off. The poor man shouted for all he was worth, ‘Shoot, shoot, the tiger is carrying me off.’ This roused the others and they picked up their guns and tried to shoot, but the powder or caps being damp, the charges would not go off. They, however, put on fresh caps and eventually got the guns to shoot. After this they fired several shots and shouted, but the man’s cries had stopped, so they judged that he must have been killed.
“The constables waited at their camp till daylight, and then went off to the camp of some Burmese elephant drivers, which was about three miles off, and made them collect their elephants, some seventeen in number, and then returned and looked for their comrade. They found the remains within a couple of hundred yards of their night’s camp. The tiger had finished its meal and had gone off. The Thugyi informed me that although several shots had been fired in the direction the tiger had gone it was not frightened, and sat there and finished its meal.
“Hearing all this, I did not wonder at the men not wanting to go into the forest. However, the work had to be done and go I must. Though I must admit I did not quite appreciate the job.”
3. Working Alongside
“On the morning of the 18th March some twenty men turned up, and the Thugyi informed me that the others would follow. So I made a move and got as far as the Khanpat stream, where I halted for a bit and had breakfast and then moved on again. It was my intention to make the Pyoungbok camp that day, as I was told it had a fence round it, made by the patrols to keep out the tiger. But the coolies would not move fast enough, so I camped on the Nanpalon stream.
“After seeing the camp pitched and everything in place, I told my clerk to make all the men stay together, and not to let any men go about the forest in ones and twos, for fear of the tiger. I also told him to have a big fire burning and to keep a watch of five men at the fire and to relieve them every two hours, and to call me in case of an alarm.
“I turned into bed at about nine o’clock, and had not been in bed ten minutes when the clerk came and called me, saying the tiger had come. I jumped out of bed, and taking my rifle ran out. The men at the fire told me that a pony tied near them began to get very restless, and kept looking towards the stream, so they got up and looked, and saw the tiger not twenty paces off, ready to rush at them. I asked where it had gone to on being found out. They replied that it had gone down into the stream.
“Whilst I was talking to the men, one man, who was looking in the direction of the stream, said, ‘Look, sir, there it is, going up the bank,’ and sure enough there it was, about seventy yards off, going across the bed of the stream. I had a shot and it sprang up the bank, and just as it was disappearing I fired a second shot. All the men said I had hit it, and Maung Kyaw Nya, my forester, was for going and looking for blood, but I thought this too dangerous and would not let him go. The next morning we got up early and went and had a look at the place where the tiger had been standing when I fired at it. I found where both the bullets had struck the ground. They were both clean misses, and had struck below the tiger and between its legs.”
(N.B.—Mr Allan was and is one of the best hunters in Burma; but, in firing in the dark, one cannot see one’s sights, and so the best of shots makes misses.—D. W.)
“For the next three days nothing happened and the coolies seemed to have got over their fright and were working well.
“On the 23rd I moved camp to a place on the Nansawin stream. The forest there was very dense and I did not at all like the idea of camping there, but as that was the only place where there was water, I had a place cleared and pitched my tent, and then went out to inspect the work. I gave orders to Maung Kyaw Nya to go ahead and pick out the way the line of demarcation should go in, and also to see how far the Thonhmwason” (that is, Three-Waters-Meeting, a camping-place where three streams met) “was from my camp of that day.
“At 3 p.m. a man came to me from the camp and said that Mg. Kyaw Nya had returned, as he had been chased by a tiger. On my return to camp in the evening I sent for Kyaw Nya and questioned him as to why he had not carried out my order. He replied that he and two other men were going along the foot of the hill following the boundary, when they came on to a half-eaten sambur (big deer). They were going to take the flesh and bring it to camp for their dinner, when they heard a rustling in the leaves, and on looking round saw a tiger coming to see what they wanted with its dinner. The men, seeing the tiger coming, dropped the sambur and went for all they were worth, till they got out into the bed of the stream, and then came down it to my camp.
“I thought the men were afraid to go out by themselves to locate the boundary, and had invented the yarn about the tiger. Mg. Kyaw Nya said, ‘If you do not believe me, sir, I will show you the place.’
“On the morning of the 25th I went out with Mg. Kyaw Nya and three or four men, and they took me to the place where the tiger’s kill had been, and sure enough there had been a kill there, but it had been finished off during the night and there was nothing but the skull and feet left. On my return to camp I had tea, and was thinking of tying out a goat and sitting up for the tiger, but I did not like the idea of having to get off the machan (platform made in a tree) and come back to the tent in the dark, so I gave it up.”
(Another objection, fatal to this plan, was that the men would have been afraid to stay in the camp at night by themselves.—D. W.)
“About 4 p.m. the men were returning from work, when I heard a great shouting not far from camp, so went out in the direction and met them returning. The forester in charge informed me that a tiger had charged out at the line of men and had tried to take one from the centre, and that the man had thrown his dah (big knife) at the beast, on which it bolted back into the grass.”
4. At Very Close Quarters
“On seeing that the tiger was round our camp I took extra precautions and made all the men stop in one place just behind my tent; and gave orders to my Indian servants to have their dinner early, and to sleep with the Burmese coolies. My cook, an Indian, would not stop near the Burmans, though told to do so several times. He had his kitchen fire just in front of my tent. However, I told him he must sleep with the other men. The other Indians also told him not to be a fool and stay away by himself. To them he replied that he was not afraid, and that if it was his fate the tiger would have him. He said, ‘If it takes me, it will be a case of one crunch and all will be over,’ and this is just what happened.
“I was having dinner early, before it got quite dark, so as to get the men together. The cook had given me my soup and had cleared the plate and put a roast fowl before me, and had gone back to the fire and was standing with a knife in his hand watching the pudding on the fire.
“I was just carving the chicken, when I heard the cook give a frightened cry, and on looking up I saw the tiger spring on to the cook. In jumping up I upset the table and the lamp on it, also a glass of beer that had just been poured out for me, and ran out shouting at the tiger, and threw my table knife at it. My dogs, two terriers and a spaniel, were sitting by my table, and jumped up and ran after the tiger with me and attacked it. One terrier and the spaniel were killed on the spot, and the other dog got away. In spite of this the tiger went off with the cook. I thought the tiger had got the cook by the back, but the sweeper who was standing close by with my goats” (that is to say, had been there when the tiger came), “said it had got him by the head, and so it turned out to be the case.
“On hearing me shout, the sweeper ran into the tent and got my rifle and cartridges and handed them to me. I put in a cartridge and fired in the direction the tiger had gone, and this had the effect of making him drop the cook, but we did not know it at the time as no one would venture into the forest to look for him. This of course upset everyone in camp, and all huddled round my tent as close as they could and shouted and beat tins all night. No one would even go to replenish the fire unless I went with them, though it was not three yards from my tent. All that night the tiger kept moving round the tent and I kept it off by firing shots whenever we heard it walking in the leaves and saw its eyes shining like live coals in the dark.”
Here it may be noted that 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 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.
“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 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
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.... 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 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 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 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._”... Was she not like the glorious Englishman, who, when his legs were cut away, still fought upon his stumps? Did any hero of Homer’s ever surpass that sorely-stricken tigress? Could any living creature have done more? And yet there are men to be found who call the big cats cowards! I never heard Mr Allan do that, nor any other man of sense who knew them well at first hand.
No wonder tigers flourished in the days of old. It is the invention of gunpowder, and then of breechloaders, that has handicapped them hopelessly. The long guerilla war between them and us has lasted for scores of millenniums; but the end is now in sight. Let us not libel the brave that are doomed to disappear. Let us not rail at the conquered. If they were fierce and strong, they were not cruel. As Nature made them, so they filled their function. They came, and chased, and conquered, impelled by hunger: and now that their hour has come they are going away. The day is at hand when the big wild cats shall all be as completely extinct as the vanished giants that wallowed in the primeval slime.