TIGER HUNTING. 413 



tiger will not attack an elephant in front unless by surprize,) 

 it crouches and receives him on the upper part, where the 

 skin is so tough, that the tiger can make but little impression 

 upon it, and capable of so much motion, that the elephant 

 shakes him off, and falls upon him, or stamps him to death ; 

 nor does it quit the carcass till it has reduced the whole to a 

 soft mass. Other animals, even the heaviest, are carried off 

 to the woods with the greatest ease ; and when he is thus en- 

 raged, he cares but little for musket-shot, if they do not hit 

 him in a vital part. In his ordinary haunts, and when he is 

 neither hungry or exasperated, the tiger is, like all wild 

 animals, afraid of fire, and in such cases a lantern is sufficient 

 protection for those who have occasion to be in the woods 

 at night ; but when hungry or excited, fire does not deter 

 him from making his attacks. Sharp shrill sounds will 

 annoy the tiger a good deal ; and in some places where they 

 are abundant, the people contrive to keep them at a distance 

 by blowing a sort of horn which has an acute and piercing 

 sound. But formidable as the tiger is in these islands, he 

 cannot be considered so absolute a monarch as he is in the 

 jungles of the Sunderbunds. In these last, there is no ani- 

 mal to attack the tiger, save the gavial, and he is only in the 

 water or on its margin ; but in the islands, the great python, 

 ular-sawa of the Javese, usually called a boa constrictor, 

 though is not a boa, except in manners, which are very much 

 alike in all crushing serpents, occasionally make prizes of the 

 tiger, and even lies in wait for him, and, strongly as he is 

 built, and little as he cares for common wounds, the folds of 

 this powerful serpent very speedily break his bones. 



From his greater activity and daring, or rather, perhaps, 

 from his frequenting more fertile places, the tiger carries off 

 human beings much more frequently than the lion ; but there 

 does not appear to be much truth in the common saying, that 

 he gives human flesh the preference. Beasts of prey, from 

 the nature of their organs of taste, cannot be very dainty in 



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