American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1880-02-28
Tigers and Elephants in India a Cen
tury Ago.

July hSO.
Ten years after The famine of 1870 a
once populous district was a silent jun
Gle; and in 1880 small body of Scpoys
could with difficulty force its way
through its forests. &C For one hundre''
and twenty miles, -" says an eyewitness,
" they marched through but an ex-
tensiye wood, all the way a perfect will
derness; sometimes n small village pre-
scented itself in the midst of these jun
giles, with Il little cultivated ground
around it, hardly sufficient to encamp
the two battalions These woods abound
with tigers and bears, which infested the
camp every night, butdid no other dam
age than carrying off Il child and killing
some of the gentlemen's baggage-bul-
locks As the rural communities re-
lina,iished their hamlets and drew closer
together toward the center of Il district,
the wild beasts pressed hungrily on their
rear. In vain the East India Company
offered reward fol. each tigers head
sufficient TO maintain Il PEASANTS family
in comfort for three months; an item OF
outlay which our officers deemed so i'm
portant, that when, in the financial
crisis of 1790-91, the Treasury
had to suspend all payments, and
it made the tiger money and
diet allowance for prisoners the sole ex-
ceptions to the rule. In vain it spent
the whole land revenue of frontier dis
trict In rewards fot killins wild beasts.
A belt OF Jungle filed With feroeious
animals lay for years around the cult
waited land. The official records fire.
quently speak of the mail-bags being
carried off by tigers, and the custom of
the mail-runners carrying jangling rings
or bells to scare away the wild beasts
survived to our own day. Lord Corn
wallis, in 1880, 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 Il 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 thousands
of men and their hundreds of thousands
of cattle But the herd of wild elephants
was absolutely resistless, lifting off
roofs, pushing down walls, tranlpling a
village under foot as if it were city OF
sand which child had built upon the
shore. In two parishes alone, during
the last few years of the native admin
istration, fifty-six hamlets with their sur
rounding lands chad all been destroyed
and gone to jungle, caused by the dep
relations of wild elephants. Another
official return states that forty marke
villages throughout Birbhum distric
had been deserted from tie same cause
Large reductions had to be made in thu
land-tax, and the East India Company
borrowed tame elephants from thu
native Viceroy's stud in order to catcl
the wild ones. 81 had ocular proc
on my Journey" writes an Englisl
officer in 1871, ssof their ravages
The poor timid native ties his cot in {
tree, to which he retires when Thu
elephants approach, and silently view
the destruction of his cottage and TIT
whole profits of his labor ON
night" writes an English surveyor IL
1870 "although I had a guard, tn
men of the village close to my ten
retired to the trees, and the women hit
themselves among the cattle, leaving
their huts prey to the elephants, wh'
know very well where to look for grain
Two nights before, some Of them ha'
Lunroofed hut in the village, and ha'
eaten up all the grain which a poo
family possessed s'Most fortunatel
for the population of the country,
wrote the greatest elephant-hnnter Q
the last century, i" they delight in tn
sequestered range of the mountains
! they preferred the plain, whole king
doms would be laid waste. y Corn
hill Magazine.