TIGER-HUNTING WITH ELEPHANTS
HUNTING ADVENTURES IN INDIA

TIGER-HUNTING WITH ELEPHANTS

About noon, a horseman came in and announced that two bears had been marked down in a ravine about six miles off, near the village of Ringnode. I sent word to the chiefs, and they soon assembled, with their usual motley array of followers, armed with guns, spears, and swords. They also brought two elephants, but were doubtful whether they would stand a charge. I ordered out my own, which, though by no means perfect, was tolerably steady. A tiger charging an elephant These being sent forward, we followed an hour later on horseback, and on arriving near the jungle, I was met by a horseman whom I had sent out with the markers on the previous day. This man assured me he had marked a tiger in some thick corinda bushes, lying on the bank of the nullah in which I had shot the panther a few days before. I supposed that he must have seen another panther, which his excitement had magnified into the nobler animal, but he persisted that it was a tiger proper, which had retired into the thicket to feast on a wild pig which it had killed in the early morning. Leaving the main body of my companions, I went forward to examine the place and fix on the plan of action. Through a finely timbered and cultivated country ran a small water- course, at this season quite dry, but fringed with high dead grass, and having at one spot, on both banks, masses of corinda bushes, twenty yards in depth by two hundred in length. Outside were open fields, from which the opium crop had been recently gathered. Having no confidence in the shooting of the chiefs, and being at the same time anxious to give them an opportunity of distinguishing themselves, I directed them to advance down the nullah on the elephants, while I went quietly forward on foot, and mounted a tree at the further end of the thicket. As the elephants came on, the tigress, for such it was, showed herself for an instant, and then retiring under a dense mass of green foliage, lay perfectly quiet. Shots were fired and stones were hurled, but she would not move, and even had the strong thorns not been too much for the elephants, I do not think the chiefs would have cared to go up to the spot where she lay concealed. At length I determined to alter our tactics, and shouting to the others to clear out of the bushes, I left my tree and mounted another at the other end of the covert. A strong wind was blowing towards me, and I directed my men to fire the grass at the far end of the thicket. In a few minutes the high grass was burning fiercely, but the ground under the green bushes was bare, and the tigress, having chosen her position well, made no sign. The fire soon died away, and as it was now near sunset I feared that we should go home empty- handed. Just then, the horseman who had marked down the tigress came running up to my tree, and implored me to go in with him on my own elephant, leaving all the rest of the party outside. He was greatly excited, and having taken off his long riding boots and drawn his sword, stood ready to guide me to the bush in which the tiger lay concealed. I called up the elephant and went forward, my guide leading; presently he lay down on the ground, and peering under the bushes assured me that he could see the tiger. I directed him to mount a tree, and as soon as I saw he was in safety, I ordered the mahout to drive the elephant forward. This he at once did, and at that instant the tigress charged. The elephant stepped back until it was clear of the bushes. The tigress burst out, I fired down, striking her through the loins, and as she fell over, the elephant turned and fled. It was soon, however, brought up by the mahout, and we again advanced at the thicket into which the tigress had disappeared. But she was now very savage, and as we approached, she came charging out into the open ground. Again the elephant spun round and went off; and as I looked over her stern, I saw the tigress, in spite of her wound, fast gaining on us. Two more strides, and she would have seized the elephant by the hind leg, but at that moment I grasped the front rail of the howdah in my left hand, and firing my rifle pistol-fashion, I dropped her in the middle of an open field. The flight of the elephant was soon checked, and finding that the tigress did not come on, she permitted herself to be driven up close enough to allow me to put an end to the scrimmage by a final shot. Condensed from Wild Man and Wild Beasts; Scenes in Camp and Jungle, by Lt. -Col. Gordon Cumming. - "Library of Travel and Adventure," edited by Bayard Taylor. Hunting in India - Wild bulls Hunting in India - Tiger-hunting at night Hunting in India - Hunting the boar Hunting in India - Bitten by a bear Hunting in India - Tiger-hunting with elephants Hunting in India - The cow-killers killed Hunting in India - Death of a gun-bearer Eastern turbans Hunters paradise in China