244 Wild Beasts 



we met face to face. He looked at me, seemed to think 

 that by some strange metamorphosis, from a two-legged 

 man, whom he despised, I had become some kind of a 

 four-legged monster like himself, put his tail between his 

 legs, and bolted for his life." 



This is a very disconcerting account for those who 

 assert that the tiger is always dazed by daylight, and a 

 coward at all times; that he shrinks from the sight and 

 scent of human beings, flies from the sound of the human 

 voice, and quails before the glance of a man's eye. 



Colonel Pollok ("Natural History Notes") says he 

 "never heard of a black tiger," but that he has "seen the 

 skins of three white ones; two entirely white and the 

 other faintly marked with yellow stripes." These came 

 from the mountains of Indo-China. In the Himalayas 

 they have been shot at an elevation of eight thousand 

 feet above the sea, and, besides being what is called white, 

 were maned. J. W. Atkinson ("Travels on the Upper 

 and Lower Amoor ") tells of a young Kirghis who, while 

 carrying off his bride, camped on this river and lost her 

 there by a tiger's attack. He threw away his own life in 

 following this animal, dagger in hand, into the reeds. 

 This does not always happen so by any means. Asiatics 

 do what Europeans cannot attempt. It is well known 

 that the Ghoorkas kill tigers with their celebrated knives ; 

 but we do not hear how many of them are destroyed in 

 such combats. Captain Basil Hall ("Travels in India") 

 saw a Hindu (using one of these weapons) meet a tiger 

 at a Rajah's court, evade his spring, hamstring him as he 

 passed, and cut through his neck into the spinal cord 



