TIGER HUNTS. I9I 



reached the surface again the tiger had turned back. Another swam out 

 from the land to a boat and climbed into it ; the crew partly jumped over- 

 board, partly locked themselves in the cabin ; the tiger sat quietly on the 

 forecastle till he was convinced that his prey had escaped him, when he 

 plunged into the river, reached the bank, shook his coat dry, and dis- 

 appeared in the jungle. Like the lion, the tiger, when he has once tasted 

 human flesh, becomes a confirmed man-eater ; he usually eats only a small 

 portion of his victims ; as the Singapore journal remarks : " If he would 

 only eat more, there would be a great saving of human life." 



While Europeans regard the tiger as a plague to be extirpated, the 

 Hindoos, as already remarked, regard it as a divinity. Very similar 

 sentiments are held even by the tribes of Eastern Siberia. They call the 

 tiger the " Man-beast," or the " Lord-beast "; they do not like to speak 

 about him, and never mention his proper name. The tribes on the Amoor 

 River designate him by the word they use for God. Li the Chinese 

 mountains, hunters who find the tracks of a tiger leave half of their game 

 on the spot to propitiate him ; the Tungusians believe whoever kills a 

 tiger will be eaten by one. In Sumatra the natives believe him to be the 

 form assumed by some dead man, and therefore will not hurt him. In 

 addition to the superstitions which thus preserve the tiger, we must 

 remark that in some parts of India he is carefully preserved as game by 

 the princes and rajahs, in spite of the hundreds of lives his maintenance 

 may cost. The English authorities tyrannically interfere with this style 

 of game preserving. In Candeish alone they procured the destruction 

 of one thousand in four years. 



In the East the chase of the tiger is an affair of state and conducted 

 with all the elaborate care of a campaign. The Emperor of China some- 

 times sends thousands of men to the hunt ; the King of Oude used to go 

 hunting with more pomp than Louis XIV used to display in making 

 war. He went afield with cavalry, infantry, and artillery, thousands of 

 elephants, an immense train of carts, camels, and beasts of burden. His 

 women accompanied him in covered cars ; bayaderes, singing women, 

 iugglers, peddlers, hunting-leopards, hawks, fighting-cocks, doves, and 

 nightingales were carried in the grand procession. With all this prepa- 

 ration only one tiger was slain on the occasion described. 



The Indian princes also take their roval game in nets. A series of 

 strong bamboo poles are placed about five or six yards apart, and a strong 

 net stretched between them. The line of nets extends in a circular form 



