No Beast So Fierce

by Dane Huckelbridge

  The truth likely lies in the middle. All accounts seem to agree that the ensuing hunt was extremely large and logistically complex. It is logical that the common beaters, walking at arm’s length and making as much noise as possible, would have been volunteers from the local population. And it could have been they, under the leadership of the village headman, who demanded the hunt and organized its logistics. On the other hand, any elephants, armed shikaris, or soldiers involved would have likely been at the very least approved by a government official, if not the Ranas themselves. Given that the hattisar stables were generally semiautonomous between royal visits, it’s not improbable to think that elephants trained for hunting would have been drafted, at the very least, with a local official’s tacit approval.

  As to how the events unfolded, there is no recorded tiger hunt in recent times to compare it with—tiger hunting has been banned in Nepal since 1972, and the royals seldom allowed videos or photographs to be taken in the decades prior. From accounts of older Nepalese hunts, however, and from more recent tiger captures using tranquilizer guns, a picture emerges of just how impressive such an endeavor would have been.

  In the first wave, pushing headlong into the trees toward the latest kill, a thousand beaters—many of whom had no doubt lost loved ones to the tiger—all shouting at the top of their lungs and clattering their curved kukri machetes to flush out the beast. Behind them, a bristling phalanx of elephants with armed shikaris on top, battle-scarred tuskers more than capable of stomping a tiger to death, trumpeting and rumbling in their eagerness to do so. And finally, in the rear, an entire company of Nepalese soldiers, rifle-toting Gurkhas, war-hardened and ready to kill should the tiger break free of the first line. A veritable army, assembled and marching, for the purpose of ending the Champawat’s reign. Using goats or young water buffalo strung along the valley as bait, they would have been able to close in on the tiger’s location. And given the topographical positioning of Rupal, it’s not hard to guess at their subsequent strategy. The village is surrounded on all sides by steep hills and ravines, a landscape that is not conducive to the traditional Nepalese “ring” hunt method practiced in the flatlands of the terai. There is, however, a single outlet from the valley to the west, leading directly to the Sharda River. With this army of men and elephants forming a U and slowly closing in on the tiger like a massive pincer, it would have been feasible at last to funnel the cat into this narrow pass, and then to corner it against the steep banks of the river. Which, apparently, was exactly what happened.

  In trying to re-create the tiger’s final moments in Nepal, we can imagine, perhaps even with some semblance of pity, this wild animal that has already had both its body and its instincts mangled by the bullets of man, all at once cornered and confused on the cliffs above the surging river, its eyes darting wildly, its heart hammering beneath its panting flanks. Its sensitive ears, designed for the faint rustlings of hooves in the forest, or fur through long grass, are instead overwhelmed by the collective thunder of a thousand men screaming, a hundred rifles firing, and a dozen elephants blasting their trumpets into the air. It moves an inch closer to the rocks’ edge, its claws scraping and clattering for purchase, unable to go a step farther without suffering a great fall. But when it sees them break through the trees, when it spies the puffs of smoke from atop the elephants and the harsh spouts of gravel at its feet, it knows, in whatever way a tiger can, that its only hope lies across the river, in the strange land beyond. And with that it roars and it leaps, a tiger falling, orange and black stripes plunging against the gray bands of rock. It vanishes with a splash just as the first team of shikaris reach the ledge; they fire shots into the rushing water far below, and they continue firing when the tiger finally emerges, soaked and scrambling, on the opposite bank of the river. But it’s too late—within seconds it is gone. It is in India now. It is in Kumaon.

  Where an entirely new hunting ground—and a new hunter—are both waiting for it.

  Part II

  India

  Chapter 4

  The Finest of Her Fauna

  The first time Edward James Corbett heard mention of the tiger that would come to be known as the Champawat was reportedly in the year 1903. He was then neither a famed tiger wallah nor a tracker of man-eaters, nor even yet a member of the Order of the Indian Empire. He was nothing more than a low-level railroad employee in his late twenties, the son of an Irish postmaster who had never studied beyond high school. The topic came up while on a hunting trip in the forests of Malani with his friend Eddie Knowles, a man who by Corbett’s own account “was one of those few, very fortunate, individuals who possess the best of everything in life.” Knowles, unlike Corbett, came from a privileged family, holding lofty positions in the Indian Army and colonial society alike. Back in Britain, such an outing that Corbett was engaged in, in Malani, would have been unthinkable—just like Hindus, the English had their own ancient caste system, and “shooting” was a ritual practiced solely by the aristocracy. A blue blood like Knowles would not have been caught dead pacing the family estate in high tweed with a “country bottled” railroad man from the sticks like Corbett. But India was not England, and the vicissitudes of colonial life rendered social boundaries somewhat more fluid.

  Jim, as his friends liked to call him, was an exceedingly likable fellow from a hardworking family, and despite his humble background and limited prospects, known throughout the district and respected by all—Englishmen and Indians alike. And more than that, he also was something of a curiosity. As a domiciled colonist born and raised in the hills of Kumaon, he was one of those rare figures who seemed equally at home in two separate worlds. He was as comfortable chatting in Kumaoni as he was speaking “the Queen’s,” and as at ease tracking sambar through the jungle as he was playing bridge at high tea. The Victorian literature of the day was obsessed with the idea of the “wild child” and the “noble savage,” particularly ones with European lineages like Tarzan and Hawkeye. In Jim Corbett, a man who had spent most of his life scouting and hunting through the local forests with indigenous shikaris, well-heeled Britons like Eddie Knowles no doubt imagined they saw some of those romantic notions played out in real life. Corbett could imitate the grunts of a leopard or the chuffing of a tiger with an accuracy that sent a collective shiver through a dinner party; his ability to pick up a spoor in a waterlogged forest put the keenest bloodhounds to shame. In short, in the rugged frontier of northern India, even for a colonial elite like Knowles, Jim Corbett was a useful and interesting friend to have. And besides, when it came to hunting, Corbett was known far and wide as one of the best shots around.

  As for the first mention of the tiger, it’s not difficult to imagine: the two young men dressed in their field khakis, the first inklings of sweat stains beginning to show at the creases, fowl guns carried lackadaisically over their shoulders. Corbett is lean and wiry, a tad bit shy, Knowles a little less so, on both counts. They share the speech and mannerisms of faraway England, but there is something subtly different about Corbett—a knowing spark behind his expressions, a Celtic twinkle at the corners of his eyes. And despite his prematurely thinning hair and slender frame, there is a sort of toughness as well, a hidden resiliency. It is a body that has known its share of hardship, one that may bend but does not break—and also, as Knowles surely knows from having hunted with him before, a body set to spring into action like a trap. On this day, though, given its overall pleasantness, the two friends are content to take things a little more casually; the afternoon sunlight has turned their search for game into a relaxing stroll. As they walk, they share hunting stories, or “shikar yarns,” as Corbett likes to call them, and as per usual, Knowles has the best ones. Stories of drunken pig-sticking with British officers, perhaps, or trick shots from atop elephants with maharajas—all of which Corbett listens to with polite but detached interest. For his friend, hunting is purely sport, a source of recreational adrenaline and trophies for the parlor. For Corbett, however, it was how he had helpe
d feed his family following the untimely death of their father. And as one of fifteen children, putting meat on the table had been a considerable task indeed—much of his youth was spent with his brothers scouting for food in the forests of Kaladhungi and Nainital. Still, Corbett listens to his friend and nods along to the tales, even when they become predictable and his mind begins to wander.

  But then Knowles mentions tigers. One tiger, in particular, and Corbett’s ears perk up like a swamp deer’s in alarm. Two hundred? The number sounds incredible, and he asks Knowles to repeat it. Knowles confirms the figure and sketches the outline of the story so far. Two hundred people in Nepal, give or take a few. And even a company of armed Gurkhas, in all their legendary fearlessness, had failed to stop it; all they had managed to do was chase it across the river, into Kumaon. Naturally, Corbett has heard tales of man-eating tigers—who in the British Raj hadn’t? But never had there been one so prolific or so close. The tiger had been wreaking havoc along the entire eastern border. They’d set bounties, hired shikaris—even dispatched troops from Almora.

  Knowles, however, is confident that the creature’s days are numbered. He tells Corbett that the government has sent in the best man for the job—his own brother-in-law, B. A. Rebsch from the forest department, the finest tiger shikari in the world. In fact, they deputed him just for the occasion.

  * * *

  Jim Corbett grew up within earshot of tigers’ roars, and as an expert hunter who had spent his formative years tracking alongside indigenous shikaris in the jungles of Kaladhungi, he was on intimate terms with the big cats. Indeed, he’d had multiple run-ins with the oversized predators, including one encounter that left a lasting mark. As a young boy, not so very long after the death of his father, he was walking alone in the forest when he stumbled right into a large Bengal, peering out at him from a plum bush. The tiger could have easily made a meal of the young Corbett with nothing more than a swipe of its claws, but it did not—it merely watched him inquisitively for a moment with its piercing golden eyes before melting away, back into the forest. It was something he would never forget.

  But while Corbett may have known a great deal about tigers—possibly more than any other European in India at that time—unlike most of his British peers, he had little interest in hunting them. He tended to view the apex predators with much the same quotidian blend of awe and respect as the local people he had lived beside in Kaladhungi and Nainital. “A tiger’s function in the scheme of things is to help maintain the balance of nature,” Corbett would later write, “and if, on rare occasions when driven by dire necessity, he kills a human being or when his natural food has been ruthlessly exterminated by man . . . it is not fair that for these acts a whole species should be branded as being cruel and bloodthirsty.” To him, the tiger in India represented “the finest of her fauna,” and even at the time of that first crucial conversation with Knowles in 1903, he was already in a good position to know.

  Jim Corbett had spent countless nights in his youth hiking through backcountry trails and sleeping in the open; he had dwelt among people, both the Pahari of the lower hills and the Tharu of the plains, who cut grasses and gathered fuel alongside tigers every day. He knew all too well the role that tigers played in keeping the delicate scales of nature from tipping, and he was under no illusions as to their disposition or abilities. Corbett was neither Hindu nor Tharu, yet in his descriptions of the animals, he readily identified something almost omnipotent, perhaps even divine. In short, he understood as only those who live in partnership with the forest truly can that to venture into its borders was to enter the realm of another lord’s kingdom. In the jungles of India, the tiger reigned supreme. It was a lesson he had learned with that very first encounter, with that very first pair of blazing golden eyes.

  Although such insights may have been relatively rare among British colonists in India at that time, the divinity of tigers—indeed, the necessity of tigers—had been a tenant of faith on the subcontinent since ancient times. Consider this text from the Mahabharata, the great Sanskrit epic poem of India, first penned—or rather chiseled, as it was initially inscribed on tablets—around 400 B.C.:

  Do not cut down the forest with its tigers and do not banish the tigers from the forest. The tiger perishes without the forest, and the forest perishes without its tigers. Therefore the tigers should stand guard over the forest and the forest should protect all its tigers.

  This notion of the tiger as a sort of spiritual guardian is deeply embedded in Hindu cosmology, and it is reiterated and reimagined in various forms throughout Hindu religious texts. To the ancient civilizations of the Indus Valley, the tiger was a potent vehicle utilized by supreme beings. Durga, the warrior goddess charged with driving evil and darkness from the world, is almost universally depicted as riding a tiger as she battles demons. Among those who venerate the forests in India, her protective role takes the form of the spiritual guardian Bonbibi, or Ban Dhevi, who also rides the tiger to defend her jungle kingdom from malevolent forces. Woodcutters and honey collectors have always been especially devoted to her, with the tradition of making puja sacrifices for her protection from wild animals going back centuries.

  The bond between humans and tigers was more than symbolic—it was, according to many Indian creation myths, literal as well. A legend originating in the northeastern state of Nagaland tells how man and tiger were both born of the same mother, and emerged as spirits through a pangolin’s den. Among the Warli tribes north of Bombay, a wedding cannot be consecrated nor fields planted without first paying tribute to the tiger god Vaghadeva. His blessing is seen as a critical component in any reproductive act, be it farming or childbearing. In all of these cases, tigers appear not as foreign enemies, but as natural allies in keeping the earth both fertile and safe. Their power is something to be respected, and if possible, harnessed, as a means of maintaining balance between the forces of life and death, darkness and light. A world without tigers would be a void, a place of pestilence, a land toppled on its side.

  Given the close associations of tigers with powerful, eternal deities, it is not surprising that the symbol of the tiger was enthusiastically adopted by many Indian kings. Royal seals of the Harappan dynasty dating back to 3000 B.C. depict heraldic tigers, and communicate a ritualistic link between the forces of nature and royal decree. Some royal families, like the Tamil Chola dynasty, which ruled much of southern India between 850 and 1014, even went so far as to appropriate the tiger as their official emblem, featuring it on their coins and banners. The Bengal tiger served for many kings as a symbolic emissary ranging across a land that was, at that point, still largely wild and uncultivated. The Chinese chronicler Hieun-Tsang, who embarked on a voyage across India in the seventh century, described an endless country “covered with thick jungle and forest trees with streams flowing round its limits and abounding with a spiritual force.” Essentially, a place where human settlement was sparse and tigers flourished. As projections of royal power, tigers represented omnipotence and omnipresence alike. Even as late as the eighteenth century, the Sultan of Mysore was clothing himself completely in tiger stripes, and displaying to his enemies a banner that decreed “The tiger is God.”

  Of all the dynasties that exercised control over India’s many territories, few had a more intimate relationship with tigers than the Mughals. Between 1526 and 1827, this Muslim family of central Asian origin ruled over an empire that at its height covered almost all of modern India. And as both sportsmen and ambitious imperialists, the Mughals recognized early on the ritualistic importance of the royal tiger hunt. Although the hunts had existed since ancient times, it was the Mughals who established and codified the true Indian shikar, complete with locally drafted beaters, elaborate camps, and bejeweled elephants. The Mughals enjoyed hunting in all of its forms, from falconry to cheetah coursing, although the bagh shikar—the true tiger hunt—was always the means by which they most clearly demonstrated their royal mandate. Elaborate tiger hunts, conducted on a rotating b
asis at a series of royal hunting reserves throughout their empire, served a function that was diplomatic, militaristic, and even religious. By incorporating local villagers as beaters and headmen as organizers, they were able to forge cooperative alliances with distant vassal states, while at the same time make a clear demonstration of their martial capacity should those alliances ever break down. In the final killing of the tiger—the lord of India’s forests—they ritualistically reinforced their own position at the top of the political food chain.

  In its early manifestations, the Mughal bagh shikar had minimal effect on tiger populations or the habitats in which tigers lived. Held at widely dispersed forests on a rotating schedule, and conducted primarily with bows and spears, these hunts were never intended to deplete the tiger population or rid a region of predators. Indeed, tigers were considered precious royal property—only the king and his vassals had the right to hunt them, and they seldom did so on a scale that threatened their existence as a species. Even a prolific hunter like Jahangir, who served as emperor between 1605 and 1627, reputedly was careful to kill game at a sustainable rate. In the first twelve years of his reign, he was reported to have killed eighty-six lions and tigers—a hefty sum, admittedly. But when one considers the annual average, it comes out to about seven kills a year. As long as the hunting sites were regularly moved, local populations of tigers could be easily replenished. Mughals like Jahangir held the tiger in awe—they placed tremendous value on having tigers in their realm, and they took great pride in their tiger-hunting traditions. Ensuring a healthy population of tigers throughout their territory was more than just a familial whim; it was their responsibility as Indian kings.

  The future of India—and of the tiger—would both change forever with the arrival of European merchants. The taste for Asian spices and silks had been acquired by wealthy Europeans during the Middle Ages, although by the fifteenth century, they had grown tired of purchasing from the usurious merchants of the Silk Road and were actively seeking to cut out the middlemen. But whereas Christopher Columbus failed in his endeavor to sail to the Indies—though a fateful failure it was—Vasco da Gama succeeded, and by 1498, the Portuguese mariner had rounded Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and made landfall at the spice port of Calicut on India’s Malabar Coast. The English weren’t far behind, and by 1511, King Henry VIII was already receiving petitions from merchants stating that “The Indies are discovered,” and urging the monarch to “bend our endeavours thitherwards” in the pursuit of trade. The first serious incursions wouldn’t occur until the latter half of the sixteenth century, though, when a trio of London merchants—Ralph Fitch, William Leeds, and James Story—set sail for the east in 1583, aboard a ship aptly named Tyger. Disembarking at Tripoli, they made the rest of the journey by foot, covering three thousand miles on their march to the subcontinent. On the way, they would discover “all sorts of spices and drugs, silk and cloth of silk, elephants teeth and much China work, and much sugar.” It wasn’t all sugar and spice, however—Ralph Fitch found that the dense forests of India were also filled with frightful animals, including tigers. Predators quite unlike any he had ever seen.