THE STORY OF A TAME LEOPARD. 
By Mary F. A. TENcH. 
66 N OUNG GYE” (which is the Burmese for “Mr. Big”) was probably the only tame 
leopard that ever grew to maturity without losing his sense of domesticity. 
Many native princes own so-called tame leopards—as a matter of fact they are cheetahs, 
and between a brow-beaten cheetah and a docile leopard there is a wide difference. 
Mr. J. Lockwood Kipling, in his well-known book, gives an interesting (if painful) 
account of how the cheetah is snared and trained. The animal is caught by means of 
sinews arranged round the trees where he comes to whet his claws. He is then made 
fast by ropes to a strong iron cot-bedstead, and with a hood drawn over his head is 
taken to his captor’s home to be starved and bullied. He is forced to walk up and 
down the village street, strongly chained. Rushes as of assault are made on him, 
staves are brandished in his face, bells are rung close to his ears, old women yell at 
him by the hour, and so’the once free wild creature, with its supple grace, becomes 
the humble servant of the rajah, having no liberty except for the few minutes 
during a hunting-party when it is unleashed in order to do to death a still wilder and 
much more harmless animal, the buck. 
But “look on this picture and on that!” Quite different was the tameness of 
“Moung Gye,” who grew up in and about the house of his master and mistress just 
ag a puppy or a kitten might do, having been brought to them as a pvesent by a 
Burman headman when he was still a tiny creature with eyes not yet open. At 
first they refused the strange gift, since they already had a much “be-animaled ” 
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