TIGERLAND 



or two, and always mauling others before making its escape, 

 which it invariably did, practically uninjured, 



By the time the monster had killed some eighty women 

 and children, the villagers were thoroughly cowed and 

 paralysed with fear, glancing round suspiciously when dis- 

 cussing the animal, whom they had now come to regard as 

 a veritable demon, against whom it was idle to contend, 

 and speaking with bated breath, as if afraid it might over- 

 hear them and take revenge. 



In the meanwhile the dread beast continued its ravages 

 unmolested, and in due course of time had added another 

 seventy-four persons to its already long list of victims. 

 Emboldened by its further successes and encouraged by 

 the impunity with which it could seize and devour its 

 prey, it no longer confined its attention to women and 

 children, but had now taken to attacking men also. 



Its movements, too, were so rapid that it was impossible 

 to say when it might not appear. For instance, one after- 

 noon at 6 P.M. it killed a woman in a hamlet four miles 

 to the south of the main village ; the very next afternoon it 

 killed and devoured a boy at a place five miles to the east ; 

 and again the next evening attacked and so severely 

 mauled a man that he died soon after in a village four 

 miles to the north-east ! On twelve occasions it killed two 

 people in one day, and three times, as many as three per 

 day. Except in the first year of its murderous career, 

 seventeen days was the longest interval it allowed to pass 

 without killing some one. 



Of the total one hundred and fifty-four persons that it 

 destroyed, it wholly or partially devoured seventy-two. 

 Of the remaining eighty-two, in some cases it left the 

 bodies untouched, whilst in four others it was driven off 

 before it had time to commence its meal ; these being 

 cases in which it was seen to kill, and was followed up by 

 large crowds of yelling villagers. 



The above figures need little comment, and it is small 

 wonder that the people, timid and superstitious as the 

 agricultural class of Bengal generally are, should have 

 become thoroughly demoralized and imbued with the 

 belief that the destroyer was no ordinary animal, but some 

 supernatural monster of Satanic origin, specially sent for 

 76 



