I 
THE RIFLE OF A PAST HALF CENTURY 
25 
Adventure with a Tiger. 
The following experience of a sportsman in the 
Deccan is from the Secunderabad paper of 14th 
June 1888 :— 
“ Mr. Cuthbert Fraser had a most miraculous escape from a 
tiger the other day at Amraoti. The lucky hero of this adventure 
is a District Superintendent of Police in Berar. He is well 
remembered in Secunderabad as Superintendent of the Canton¬ 
ment Police before Mr. Crawford. A son of Colonel Hastings 
Fraser, one of the Frasers of Lovat, he has proved his possession 
of that nerve and courage which rises to the emergency of 
danger—on which qualities more than all else the British Empire 
in India has been built, and on which, after all is said, in the 
last resort, it must be still held to rest. To quote the graphic 
account of a correspondent, the escape was about as narrow 
as man ever had. Mr. Fraser was told by his orderly that 
a wounded tiger was lying dead with his head on the root 
of a tree. The orderly having called him up, he went to the 
spot. Mr. Fraser then sent the orderly and another man with 
his second gun back, and knelt down to look. Just then the 
tiger roared and came at him from about eighteen feet off: 
he waited till the tiger was within five feet of him and fired. 
As the tiger did not drop, he fired his second shot hurriedly. 
The first shot had hit exactly in the centre of the face but just 
an inch too low. It knocked the tiger’s right eye out and 
smashed all the teeth of that side of the jaw. The second shot 
struck the tiger in the chest, but too low. What happened then 
Mr. Fraser does not exactly know, but he next found himself 
lying in front of the tiger, one claw of the beast’s right foot being 
hooked into his left leg, in this way trying to draw Mr. Fraser 
towards him; the other paw was on his right leg. Mr. Fraser’s 
chin and coat were covered with foam from the beast’s mouth. 
He tried hard to draw himself out of the tiger’s clutches. 
Fortunately the beast was not able to see him, as Mr. Fraser 
was a little to one side on the animal’s blind side and the tiger’s 
head was up. Suddenly seeing Mr. Fraser’s orderly bolting, 
he jumped up and went for the man, and catching him he killed 
