The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-05
A NIGHT ON TIGER ISLAND.
A Nocturnal Siege in a Lighthouse
Tower on the Ganges.
How a IindOo Baboos Dignity Protested
Against the Assaults of Two FerO-
ciOuS Natives of the Jungle.
Philadelphia Press.

A few years ago I was sitting at the table
d'hote of the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta
dividing my time between enjoying the dessert
and wal hing my neighbors, who had gathered
from all parts of India to spend the holidays in
the city of palaces. There We're the pompous
chief commissioner from the Mofussil or outly
ing districts, the eye-gassed colonel from the
environments of Umballa, the priggish young
civil engineer from the Madras irrigation works
merchants, cotton-walabs from all parts of Ben
gal, and number of tea and indigo planters
from the swamps and iungles of Assam
The white-robed native walters, or knit
mutgars, were moving silently around the
table, and in the doorways the
patient but utterly depraved coolies were pull
ing the punkahs, which were mitigating by their
weary pulsations the warmth of the atmosphere
in the ROOM There was nothing exceptional in
all this. The guests were familiar types of An
glo-Indian life, and the khansamahs, khitmut
gars and punkahwallas were as natural to the
scene as could be expected. Suddenlymy atten
ton was attracted by the entrance of bluff.
stout. sun-burned man. dressed in a loose suit of
white flannel, broad pith hat and light canvas
shoes He took no notice of the company. but
at once seized a seat and ordered one of the knit
mutgars to bring him good, stiff peg elk dunn
Anghce. tumberful of brandy and soda water.
at once. He seemed worried, tired, and out of
temper.
When most of the company had left the table
L got into conversation with him by casually
telling him that I hoped he had spent a happy
''New YearT-for the time was just day or two
after the beginning of what has since been
known as the Bengal famine year
Hang the New Year" he exclaimed abruptly.
Here boy, bring me another peg he shouted
to one of the walters, and turning to me, said
Eyes sir l say hang the New Year AS this
was a rather startling opening of the CONVERSE
ton, ventu1ed to hope that nothing serious had
happened to him.
II have had, he said, the worst experience
any Christian ever had in this Internal country.
Confound it, sir, l have spent the New Year
with pair of the meanest, mangest, big
mouthed brutes of tigers that were ever whipped
in Bengal"
'Tigers7 l exclaimed.
Yes sir; pair Of the measliest soors pardon
-Anglice, pigs of brutes that ever lived. Its a
wonder I'm alive to-day to tell the story. Do
you know Sanger island|
/ replied that did, because in sailing from
Calcutta to and from Rangoon the steamer
had passed twice within short distance from
the place he named. 1t is a lowlying island
at the mouth of the Hoogley river about sixty
miles from Calcutta, and is really portion of
the deadly iungles known as the Soonderbunds,
which form the delta of the Ganges. remem-
bered very well that when we We're passing it the
captain told me some remarkable stories about
its reputation. He said that although it looked
pleasant enough lying there with the palm trees
growing down to the waters edge, yet sailors
never passed it without hoping that they might
never be wrecked there if it was their fate to 60
down to Davy Jones's locker.
Sailors in the Eastern seas never call Sanger
island anything but Tiger island, and they
firmly believe that tobe cast ashore there means
certain death from the wild beasts That infest its
juuges They tell plenty of stories about sailors
snipvrecked on its coasts diving awful deaths
from tigers and panthers and believe there is
an authenticated instance of "a shipwrecked crew
of dozen men, who kindled fires nightly to
scare off the brutes that howled around them,
but who were carried off one by one until there
was only one left to tell the story, and when he
was rescued he was almost a raving lunatic.
Knowing all this about Sanger island. |, of
have Just recorded.
Well" said he 81 have pretty good reason
for knowing great deal better that most people
about Sanger island As VOuarc probably aware.
the government of Bengal, besides having
regular lot of pilots to navigate vessels out of
and into the river, maintains lighthouse serv-
ice to look after the beacons that scattered
along its banks. There is very important
light house on Sanger island was the keeper.
| amt now. / have resigned my appointment
there, and won't 60 back again. I'm going TO
give somebody else chance of being carried off
into the jungles like mouse in cats mouth
and chawed up in the sinking hole that a tiger
calls a den. On New Years eve, about
10 o'clock was sitting reading the papers,
after having seen that everything
was all right in the room above where the
volying light was kept. Suddenly I heard an
internal row in the compound down below.
where | kept pony and lot of fowls The
moorghies-that is my cocks and hens, you
knOw-were cacking and flying about like the
L. i toll
and whinnying like mad-by heavens, sir, he
was almost screaming like a human being
! repeat it, sir, like human being. There
was stout bamboo fence and a cactus hedge
around the compound but | knew at once what
the matter was. The natives in the cooking
place in the second story commenced yelling:
'Sahib sahib Bagh hye bohut bu17l bagh
hyam Sir. sir! There is big tiger herc-a
too-much big tiger.)
LAS I knew, said the weather-beaten mariner,
that the place was infested by brutes that
you dared scarcely walk out hundred yards be
tween the lighthouse and the shore, | was not
surprised; but the idea that any of the informal
brutes would break over my palisades and at
tempt to seize the governments property in live
stock. was almost too much for my belief |
called for my rifles, forgetting entirely that the
night was almost pitch dark, and that there was
nothing visible from my eyrie but the white roll
ers trundling upward on the beach-sngularly,
sir, like tigers teeth on the eternal alert for gore
| told the khitmutgar to fetch my rifles from the
lamp-room down stairs. He came tumbling up
stairs with so much trepdation that his pug
garee, or turban rolled off his head down the
marrow stairs, and revealed polished, shaved
poll that would have made you laugh at any
other time.
"Sar," said he, or rather whimpered he-for,
as you know, Bengalese are never possessed of
more than the amount of pluck to the pound
than is necessary-"b tigers have eaten the
horses and swallowed the moorghies, and are
now in charge of the whole first floor of the
lighthouse khana, where your Lordships muir
derous weapons of war are kept"
You, soor," cried / that is, of course, the
thouse-keeper-' bring me up my rifles at
Of Vishnu. The baghs have burst open the
lower door of the tower, have eaten the tattoo,
and are chasing the fowls, and we darent go
down Nn1l are my father and my 1nnthnr--hn-