Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-10-28
NDIA'S TIGER TYRANtE.
The Beautiful But Cruel Lord al
the Jungle.
str Edwin Arnold's "Reminiscences OF the
Striped Destroyer of Man and DesoIa-
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 a
tract of country in the parts am re-
visiting in thought is the gold-coatcd
and striped tyrant of the woods, the
tiger. There are large ranges on the
ghauts-one might almost call them es-
:ates-which are owned, at least tenn
porarily, by a pair of tigers, or, it may
be, by ali old male tiger singly, or by a
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.
It 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 n vii
lage. In such q country as l am de-
scribing the villages are few and 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 hereaboutS his pre-
tensions to call himself lord OF tho
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 thicllets which are the
fringe Of an intcrminablc forest, the
striped rajah Of the forest is often
times master of the situation, and
fs,1- ~, -,
dogs OF the community till he can be
trapped or poisoned, or until he goes
for some personal reason elsewhere. It
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 win often fearlessly
save his oxen by shouting at the at
tacl1ing tiger, and even finging 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 tiger
who has been, like the rest of his kind,
terribly afraid of a man in any shape,
lays that dread aside on 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 a tiger is the
courage not of pride, but of despera-
ton, like that of the cat. He will get
between the roots of the trees or the
cracks of the earth to escape, but if
escape be cut off he will attack an
elephant with armed sportsrnen upon
it, which is as if an infantry soldier
should hurl himself against the ma
sorry of a fortress.
In some fatal moment the Hindoo
girl going with her pitcher, or the ma
tive agriculturist, or the local post
man with his jingling bells, has passed
some spot where tiger lay in wait,
swatching 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
paroxysm of rage and fear, it has
ohoi iCu shiiNi 81 lLS 1OI III duo OSdlt III
frenzy rather than design that terrible
blow with the forepaw which will stun
wild boar and dislocate the neck
bone of a 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 so
dreaded; those limbs that bore him SO
haughtily with his head to the sky.
Moreover, the tiger has tasted man
and found him as savory to devour as
he is easy to butcher. and from that
time forth the brute neglects no fur
Their opportunity, but becomes con-
frmed 'T1aneater."