THE MANCHURIAN TIGER 
till semi-putrefaction sets in before it is found and the skin removed. 
A skin, taken under such conditions, will often dry out apparently in 
good order; but, alas! for the luckless bargain hunter in Seoul or the 
Treaty Ports who may have paid anything between £20 and £40 for his 
trophy, when the skin is immersed in the tan tub at home, hardly a hair 
will be left on it! 
My own most successful hunts have been in the island of Chindo, some 
thirty miles as the crow flies south-east of the open port of Mokpo, 
situated at the south-west corner of Korea. It is separated from the 
mainland by a channel between two and three miles wide, through 
which the current rushes at such a rate that it is only possible to cross 
in a large boat for thirty minutes or so at each turn of the tide, and 
yet tiger most readily face this fierce tide pretty frequently. The 
island is about the size of the Isle of Wight, and there being very 
little cover on it when snow is on the ground it can be fairly conclusively 
ascertained whether tiger are or are not on the island by letting it be 
generally known among the villagers that authentic news of fresh tiger 
tracks will be liberally rewarded. On one visit I was greeted with the 
intelligence that four tigers were there, a male and female of fair size, and 
two three-year-old females. The first two I secured a day or two later, the 
other two broke back through the beaters in a drive some twelve miles 
from the nearest part of the channel. The next morning their tracks were 
reported in the tidal mud, heading across the Straits for the mainland, but 
being still sceptical as to tiger facing such a swim in the depth of winter I 
continued my hunt for ten days, during which no fresh tracks were seen. 
Three weeks later news of another pair in the island led me back, but 
though we jumped one I never actually saw more than the footprints. 
A week later these two were also tracked over the mud towards the Straits 
and mainland. Early this year (1914) the body of a tiger was washed up on 
the west coast of Japan south of Matsue, at least 120 miles from the nearest 
mainland, from whence alone it could have come; yet, as reported in the 
press, its condition was such that the skin was removed for dressing and 
parts of the flesh sold for consumption! One wonders if the poor brute may 
have been some tigrine Pilgrim Father driven from his native land through 
the persecution of the new conquerors of Korea! 
This demand for tiger flesh on the part of the Japanese is a curious 
survival of barbaric superstition in such a highly civilized race. One of 
their chief officials sent me an urgent request for a shoulder on hearing of 
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