The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-03-10
Tigers and Elephants-India,
10000.

Ten years after the famine of 1870.
a once populous district was silent
jungle; and in 1850 small body of
Sepoys could with difficulty force it's way
through its forests. For 100 miles
says an eyewitness, they marched
through but an extensive wood. all the
way perfect wilderness; some times a
small village presented itself in the midst
OF these Jungles, with a little cultivated
ground around it, hardly sufficient to
encamp the two battalions. These woods
abound with tigers and bears, which in
tested the camp every night, but did no
other damage than carlyingof child and
killing some of the gentlemens baggage
bullocks. AS the rural communities
rellnqulshed their hamlets and drew
closer together toward the centre of a
district, the wild beasts pressed hungrily
on their rear. In vain the East India
Company offered a reward for each.
tigers head sufficient to maintain a
peasants family in comfort for months;
an item of outlay which our officers
deemed SO important. that when, in the
financial crisis Of l790-91, the Treasury
had to suspend all payments, and it made
the tiger money and diet allowance for
prisoners the sole exceptions to the rule.
In VAIN 1T spent the whole land revenue
OF frontier district in rewards for killing
wild beasts. A belt of Jungle filled with
teroclous animals lay for years around
the cultivated land The official records
frequently speak of the mailbag being
carried off by tigers, and the custom Of
the mall-runners carrying jangling rings
or bells to scare away the wild beasts
survived to our own day Lord Corn
wallis, in 1889, had to sanction Grant
OF public money to free the military road
from the depredations Of these animals.
The ravages of the wild elephants were
on a larger scale, and their extermina-
ton formed one Of the most important
duties of the British officers after the
country passed under our rule Tigers.
leopards, and wolves slew their thou
sands of men and their hundreds of
thousands of cattle But the herd of wild
elephants was absolutely resistless, lift
ing off roofs, pushing down walls, tramp
ling village under foot as if it were a
city OF sand which child had built upon
the shore. In two parishes alone. dur
ing the last few years of the native adj
ministration, Sc hamlets with their sur
rounding lands had all been DESTROYED
and gone to Jungle caused by the de-
predations of wild elephants. Another
official return states that 40 market vii
lagos throughout Birbhum district had
been deserted from the same cause.
Large reductions had to be made in the
land-tax and the East India Company
borrowed tame elephants from the native
Viceroy's stud in order to catch the wild
ones. ! had ocular proof on my iourn-
ney, writes an English officer in 1871.
OF their ravages. The poor timid ma
tive ties his cot in tree, to which he re-
tires when the elephants approach and
silently views the destruction of his cot
tage and the whole profits Of his labor.
" One night, writes an English survivor
IN 1910, although l had guard the
men Of the village close to my tens re-
tired to the trees, and the women hid
themselves among the cattle. leaving
their huts a prey to the elephants, who
knew very we'll where to look for grain
Two nights before some of them had un-
rooted hut in the village, and had eaten
up all the grain which q poor family
possessed Most fortunately for the
population of the country wrote the
greatest lephant-hunter Of the last cen
tury, they delight in the sequestered
range of the mountains if they preferred
the plain, whole Kingdoms would be laid
waste ~ The C0yDbJW Iggg-j53o