96 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



which they are left in peace, and they are in- 

 teresting chiefly as the probable descendants of 

 the lions of Bible story in the lives of Samson 

 and Daniel. 



The great cat of India is the tiger, commonly 

 acclaimed Lord of the Jungle. His lordship is 

 not, however, undisputed. I remember read- 

 ing a story in the Rangoon Gazette of a tame 

 elephant pluckily rescuing its mahout from a 

 tiger. Considering how mahouts often treat 

 their beasts, it was an act of touching devotion. 

 The man had washed the elephant as usual and 

 was driving it to its feeding-ground, the animal 

 walking a little in advance, when, all of a 

 sudden, a tiger charged out of the jungle and 

 knocked him over. The tiger then began to 

 bite, and the man screamed for help. Back 

 came the elephant in no end of a hurry, kick- 

 ing the tiger into the air with such force that, 

 on reaching the ground again, it fled for dear 

 life, coughing up blood as it ran. Yet, in the 

 great open-air menagerie which we call the 

 jungle, even the elephant is not always master, 

 but goes in deadly fear of the rhinoceros, which, 

 as Dr. Longstaff reminds me, fights differently 

 from its African cousin. The African charges 

 head down and tosses a man or a horse on its 

 horn without difficulty. The Indian rhinoceros, 

 on the contrary, charges head up and inflicts 

 such fearful bites with the sharp teeth of the 



