TIGER HUNTING. 409 



not rest to eat what lie kills, but goes on attacking and killing 

 indiscriminately. In his native jungles, there is no reason to 

 believe that he commits murder for the sake of murder, but 

 simply that he seeks his food according to the general law 

 observed by all animals ; and that, when fed, he is in repose, 

 and quite harmless, as well as the rest. Tigers are much 

 more numerous in those jungles than perhaps any other beast 

 of prey in any part of the world ; and as the individuals are 

 all very like each other, it is possible that this character may 

 have arisen from one tiger getting credit for having done that 

 work which was really the performance of a dozen or more. 



Many of the Islands and muddy banks in the tiger's 

 country are held as sacred by the superstitious Hindoos, and 

 as such, they are resorted to by devotees. These devotees 

 very often fall a prey to the tigers ; but as not a few of them 

 go to such places for the express purpose of seeking death, it 

 is possible that death by a tiger, by being more brief, is at- 

 tended with less real suffering than starving to death in a 

 region where the atmosphere is pestilence. When the water 

 is high, and boats can pass near the trees which cover these 

 islands, such approaches are highly dangerous, because a 

 tiger will spring for a very considerable distance from the 

 jungle upon a boat full of armed men, and make off with one 

 of them before the rest have time to offer any resistance. 

 Even when parties of mounted soldiers ride too close to the 

 tiger jungles, the tiger will sometimes spring, seize a horse- 

 man, and be off with him almost before those with him are 

 aware of it. 



In places which are not so humid as the jungles of the Sun- 

 derbunds, tigers do not attain the same size, but they are 

 more active, and on this account more dangerous to the inha- 

 bitants. In the larger islands, Sumatra and Java especially 

 (we know less of the interior of Borneo,) these animals are 

 highly destructive. They not only intercept the people in 

 journeys through the woods, and, from the nature of the cli- 



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