Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-01-30
A TIGERS FIGHT FOR LIFE.
From the Straits Times.)

Sir-With reference to your account in
Mondays paper of the shooting Of a
tiger at Tampenis by myself, you would
make it appear that Messrs. Nav and
owens heaters simply put out the
beast, and it was at once shot dead by
Mr.. Owen. This, however, conveys any
thing but a fair account of what really
happened, and. in fairness to another
sportsman, who was very much more
Gin at the. death" than myself, shall
feel obliged by your giving your readers
the following account of the shoot
For weeks past, the manager Of the
Clear Water dairy farm at Tampenis
has been anxious to get rid Of tiger
which had taken up its abode in the
jungies between Changie and the farm
and had taken off three of his calves
during the past three weeks. Knowing
the tiger to be paying periodical visits
| to the farm, I left couple or my track
ers at Tampenis to keep a lookout for
him, and whenever they tracked him
| into anything like a beatable bit of
| jungle to let me know, and Mr.. Nav
and myself held ourselves in readiness
to go out at a moments notice. This
led to our paying frequent visits to
| Tampenis within the last fortnight with
a view to beating him out of jungles
into which my men had tracked him,
but he invariably managed either to
sneak away without being seen or lie
up in some impenetrable jungle.
On Sunday he was tracked into
small strip of jungle quite close to the
I . \, ~ n a hslIf
milestone. We beat this jungle with the
result that we put him out, but, as on
previous occasions, he managed to
evade the guns. We, however, saw the
place he broke cover and the direction
| he was moving in Knowing he must
move into jungle about couple OF
miles away. Mr. Nav and myself ran
| to the opposite side of the jungle IN or
der to cut him off before he got through,
| telling tine heaters at the same time to
follow the footprints of the tiger and
| beat him out to where we We're going
| TO take up our positions. In this they
were successful and after about an
hours beating the tiger broke cover IN
| front of my position, and having got
clear Of the jungle and Travelled about
a quarter Of mile in the thick fern
| and lallang without being seen by either
of the guns, he had to cross a couple or
bare sandy patches some 100 yards TO
my right When he reached the nrSt
| match found he was moving IN the Oh
| rection of the second, which was a rev
| wards nearer to where l was standing,
| SO I waited until 1 got the closer shot,
| and then 1 put two into MIN from my
| 577-expresS rifie-one body shot, the
other breaking his hind leg in most
| chastity fashion, completely SCATTERING
the bone to fragments
In spite of this he managed to get
| AWAY. and by following up the BLOOD
| tracks, which were easily visible, Wner-
ever he went, we tracked MIN into an
other Jungle behind where ] was stand
ing. Taking it for granted that ne
| would not go very far in his wounded
condition, Mr.. Nav and myself ran to
the opposite side of this jungle to again
head him. and instructed the heaters to
again follow him up and endeavor TO
put him out Up till now nothing very
thrilling had taken place, although one $
feelings were not Of the pleasantest
when following up the blood trail
through thick underground, not know
ing the moment you might almost walk
on top of him.
Now, it happened that another party
of sportsmen Messrs. Hienerwadel and
Kessler, were beating this piece of jun
gle into which the tiger had moved-foG
pig They, hearing the shots and know
ing that we were beating for the tiger
stopped their beat for pig and took uT
positions on the top of a hill, Judging
that if the tiger were put out and go'
past us he would run in their direction
which happened to be the case, for one
of their crackers had two shots at him
and Mr. Hienerwadel got one at about
eight yards distance; the brute ther
moved in the direction of bit OF SWAMP
about half a mile off, and was there
put "at bay by some of Mr. Hienerwa-
del's dogs Mr.. HienerWadel pushed his
way through about 200 yards Of thick
underground and got to within five
wards of the wounded beast, when he
put a shot into him from a 500 Winches-
ter repeater The tiger then moved on
a little further, and Mr.. H. followed
him; in doing so he got his feet entan-
gled in creepers, and somewhat to his
establishment, found himself within two
yards of the tiger. He then fired four
shots in quick succession and as Mr.. H.
!. expresses it, ''he received every bullet
with a tremendous roar" Mr.. H., hav-
ing exhausted his supply of ammuni-
ton, then climbed up tree and called
to his men to bring his second gun.
Mr.. HIS account of the last moments
of the poor beast is: 1.-THE tiger pulled
: himself together again and went on, but
the dogs were so keen that they did not
allow him to go farther than three or
four yards at time, I am really as
tonished at the pluck these pariahs dis
played in sticking to him in the way
they did. In this manner the tiger
moved for about twenty or thirty yards,
when he lay down, making a splendid
struggle for life, hitting in all directions
with his paws with apparently consid-
cradle force 1t was splendid picture
and rare one to witness. When I got
my second gun 1 went closer to him
and gave him two more bullets"
Thus ended the career of fine, we'll
conditioned tiger, which measured s
feet 4 inches over all-the tail only ac-
counting for 2 feet 9 inches of this
measurement-height at the shoulder,
feet, inches. l am, etc,
G. P. Owen