The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-08-31
INDIA'S TIGER TYRANT.
The Beautiful But Cruel Lord of
the Jungle.
Sir Edwin Arnold's "Reminiscences of the
Striped Destroyer of Man and Desola-
tor of Native villages-The Tigers
First Taste of Human Bio cd.

Sir Edwin Arnold writes in the Lon
don Daily Telegraph as follows. The
true owner and landlord of many
tract of country in the parts am re-
visiting in thought is the gold-coated
and striped tyrant of the woods, the
tiger. There are large ranges on the
ghauts-one might almost call them es-
tates-which are owned, at least tenn
porarily, by pair of tigers, or, it may
be, by an old male tiger singly, or by
tigress which has been left alone to
take care of herself and her cubs and
so develops all the worst virtues of her
fierce maternity.
1t is one of these last that has come
to my mind in connection with sum
mer evening in India, when along the
lonely jungle road an Englishman and
his attendants were approaching vii
lage. In such country as | am de-
scribing the villages are few ard far
between partly because of many diff
culties as to agriculture and markets.
partly because of the resolute way in
which the more courageous wild beasts
dispute with man hcreabouts his pre-
creation. On the plains where the coun-
try is open and easily traversed tigers
never stay long in one place, or are
likely to pay with their hides if they
do; but on the shoulders of the hills,
surrounded by thickets which are the
fringe of an interminable forest. the
striped rajah of the forest is often
times master of the situation, and
! takes tribute from the cattle, goats and
dogs of the community till he can be
trapped or poisoned, or until he goes
for some personal reason elsewhere. 1t
! is not so bad for the country people as
! long as he retains his natural dread of
man, which is SO instructive that the
Indian herd boy will often fearlessly
save his oxen by shouting at the at
! tacking tiger, and even fiinging his
stick at him; nor do the slender In
! dian girls shrink from leading their
goats to the stream or fetching home
wool and grass because a tiger has
killed COW or kid just beyond the
! village.
! But at one time or another a tiger
! who has been, like the rest of his kind,
terribly afraid of a man in any shape,
lays that dread aside on Il sudden and
forever, and then becomes truly for
midable, 1t is perhaps in most cases
the result OF an unintended expert
ment. The courage of tiger is the
courage not of pride, but of despera-
ton, like that of the cat He will get
/ cracks of the earth to escape, but if
/ l.. L.
elephant with armed sportsmen upon
/ it, which is as if an infantry soldier
should hurl himself against the ma
sonry of fortress.
! In some fatal moment the Hindoo
girl going with her pitcher, or the ma
tive agriculturist, or the local post
man with his iingling bells, has passed
some spot where a tiger lay in wait,
watching the distant cattle grazing,
or waiting for nighttime to visit some
tigress who has amorously responded
to his roar.
The beast has thought himself per-
ceived, has feared to be cut off from
his usual retreat or the victim has
shouted in terror, making the tiger
hysterical with fright, and then, in a
paroxysm of rage and fear, it has
snarled and sprung forth and dealt in
frenzy rather than design that terrible
blow with the forepaw which will stun
wild boar and dislocate the neck
bone of bull. Before his roar of an
cry surprise has echoed through the
jungle the man or woman or child
lies corpse under his claws, and in
stinct forces him to go on, and to
crunch the soft neck with his yellow
fangs. Then the secret is out; the
tiger has learned what poor forked
thing" this lord of the creation is; how
feeble his natural forces; how useless
for defense that eye that was sc
dreaded; those limbs that bore him sc
haughtily with his head to the sky
Moreover, the tiger has tasted mar
and found him as savory to devour as
he is easy to butcher, and from thai
time forth the brute neglects no fur
ther opportunity, but becomes con
frmed "maneater."