by Ruskin Bond
(1929)
A Letter from the Jungle
By 'Nimrod'
ou have been promised a letter from the jungle and here, at last, I send it to you.
You have probably not forgotten how cold it was during the time that arctic wave spread all over England (and Europe) early in February. Well, we arrived at our Forest Rest House on the 1st of the month, and that night the whole country was sorely stricken by the same cold wave which passed over the whole of India also, and caused great damage to the crops and the foliage of the forest tracts.
We were in the valley of the Tapti river and the cold was intense. The thermometer hung up in the verandah showed the temperature at six in the morning to be 30°Fahrenheit. Not very cold you will say, comparing that with the cold you experienced, but really cold to us dwellers in this warmer climate.
Following on that cold wave the forests of the low-lying country were, and still are, a pitiful sight. All was brown, having the appearance of having been burnt, where all should, at that time of the year, have been in every beautiful shade of green. Looking down on the valleys from the higher slopes of the hills one could see quite a distinct line marking the nigh level, as it were, of the cold wave.
We did not stay long at that camp as the tigers I wanted were absent. They would be there later in the year when the streams and pools in the forests have dried up. Then, the animals would have migrated to the larger streams; for where the animals congregate there will be the tiger and panther which prey upon them.
I went several times along the river looking for tracks, but did not find the sign manual of the Lords of the Forest. It is always very interesting to be out in the early morning at the time when, as the native of the country expresses it, "you can just see the hair on your hand against the sky." That is the time to see animals, and birds, too. All the feathered world is busy at the daily task of finding food; and the animals, having been feeding— or on the prowl, according to their nature—all night, are slowly and quietly making their way to secluded places where they can lie up for the day and have undisturbed rest.
The sandy bed of the river shows plainly 1:o our eyes the tracks of all the jungle people who have been abroad during the hours of darkness. Darkness to us but not to them; for not as you imagine it is the darkness of the tropic night. If one does not use an artificial illuminant, one soon becomes accustomed to the light afforded by the stars and finds it sufficient for one's needs. Except when in deep shadow one can see quite well.
But there are certain colours which are not readily visible in twilight and darkness; stare as hard as you wish you will not be able to make out with any distinctness the form of the larger carnivora even at a few yards' distance. It is the ground colour of tawny yellow which is their concealment. Night shooting without the aid of a torch is a very chancy affair.
In the river bed were the tracks of a hyaena, easily distinguishable from those of a panther by the uneven shape of the main pad of the foot; of a porcupine which had come to have a drink; of several wild cats—Great Grandsons of Tom Puss, I call them, of prowling jackals; and of otters. In one place, a long smear in the sand showed where a crocodile had been for a waddling stroll.
Hares love to sport and play in open spaces, and it was evident at one spot that there had been a fine frolic on the part of a couple of these "sons of asses" as natives of some parts of India style them. There were a few tracks of sambur, all hinds and small stags as was plain to the eye; and rounding a bend of the river we saw ahead of us, a couple of hundred yards away, a small stag chital with several hinds. They were re-crossing the river, to gain the security of the Government Forest, after having spent the night among the crops of a village on the further bank.
Peafowl and jungle fowl had been to drink; white egrets were to be seen along the reedy borders of the pools; a pair of Ruddy Sheldrakes—Brahmini ducks of the European sportsman—rose with loud calls of "chakwa, chakwa"; and circling in the sky was a Brahmini kite, a fine handsome bird of bright russet plumage with a conspicuously white head. This bird also is reverenced by Hindus as being sacred to Vishnu, one of their gods.
One day, I went to the higher hills and came across a large sounder of wild pig. Fine animals they were, and no doubt, very excellent pork! But as our servants are Muhammadans, to whom pork in any form is an abomination, the pigs were unmolested. On the way back to camp that day, I passed a place over which I had walked in the morning, and there, over my own tracks, were those of a panther which had no doubt been disturbed by us when we went up the ravine earlier in the day.
After twelve useless days at that camp we moved to another one ten miles south of the river and some six or seven hundred feet higher as to elevation.
The first Rest House was on the very edge of the forest. This one was in a large cultivated clearing into which led six roads, and several paths. Where there are roads and paths, it is much easier to locate the tigers on account of their habit of using these at night during their wanderings in search of game. You can understand that, as it is their business—the business of their very existence—to see and hear and not be seen or heard, it is greatly to their advantage to walk along tracks which allow them to be all eyes and ears without thought of having to tread silent through dry leaves, grass and brushwood.
In order to get tigers, either by beating or by sitting up for them to return to their kill, one has to tie up young buffalo as bait. It sounds cruel but is less cruel than it seems. Death, when it comes to them, is speedy. There is a moment of alarm, it may amount to fright, when they first realise the approach of the feline; and though they may be frightened the first few nights at being left alone in the forest, they soon get used to that, and have but little fear, and no foreknowledge, of what will attack them.
How do I know all that? On very many occasions I have watched all night over live buffaloes and have five times seen what took place when the killing happened. I have also seen panthers kill goats tied up for them and in those cases too the end was merciful.
Sometimes panthers are playful in their killing, like a cat with a mouse, when they see a tethered goat which cannot escape them.
I once saw a panther rush at a goat—these big cats take their prey with a rush, and do not spring upon it—seize it by the neck and run off again! The goat got up, and after a few moments went on with his feed of leaves as if nothing had happened! Perhaps, I may find space in this letter for another incident in illustration of the want of fear evidenced by tethered animals; so the old lady who wrote the other day to a writer on shikar, saying he was "a cruel monster and should himself be tethered," was kind-hearted but mistaken.
That camp where all the roads met was a good one for tiger. I shot three there, all stone dead—no, one ran a few yards—so their end was even more merciful than that of their victims.
On the second night of the arrival at the new camp there was a kill on one of the main roads. The tracks in the dust showed that there were two animals at the feast, one a tigress—as could be known by the oval shape of the pug mark—and the other a large male cub. The size of the fang marks in the neck showed that it was the tigress who had done the killing.
I sat up over the kill in a dining room chair, which is quite a comfortable seat for the purpose, and at nine o'clock was made aware of the approach of the pair by a most expressive warning "swear," uttered by the tigress to keep her son from being too hasty to get to his dinner. It was plain to me, and no doubt to him also, that she said "Keep off it you young fool, or you may get it in the neck!"
I was well screened, and sat very quiet. In a few minutes I could see by the light of the moon that a big animal was at the kill, and put up my field glasses. The beast began to feed. The shadows were confusing, but it seemed to be the tigress as the forearm appeared large. I peered and stared, and should have waited for both the animals to be on the kill at the same time. It was interesting to see the way the tiger used the big claw— the "thumb" of the right paw—to push back the skin
and bare the meat of the ribs.
The other animal not showing itself I fired at the shoulder of the feeding beast. To the shot it dashed away into the long grass, but as I heard what seemed to my practised ear a tumble, and no further sound, I knew the tiger must be dead.
At the same time the sound of two or three quiet footsteps came to my ears as the other animals made off and I knew it must be the son, and not the mother, which had been slain.
That this was the case was soon confirmed, as the whole jungle was made aware that the tigress was looking for her son. For the next two hours far and wide she roamed loudly uttering "a-a-ough, a-a-ough" to the terror of the sambur and the four-horned antelope, the barking-deer and the langoors, all of which sounded their alarm calls from time to time. But she did not return to the kill.
In the morning the tiger was found not twenty feet away from the kill. He had been shot through the heart, and in his death rush had turned a complete somersault so that his head was towards where he had come from when fired at. He weighed 180 lbs. and was seven feet long. His paws were large and his forearm as big, almost, as those of his mother. That was what had deceived me, but I ought to have waited. It was a pity I shot him, as he would have grown into a fine tiger.
The next night I again occupied the chair, but had a fruitless vigil. The tigress was around for two hours, calling and bewailing as on the previous evening, but did not come to the kill.
That night a big tiger passed the place where, had I not been sitting up for the tigress, a buffalo would have been tethered. A pity one cannot be in two places at the same time!
The next night, the tigress returned to the kill and had a big feed of very high meat. Had the tree been suitable for a full length machan I would have been in waiting. I decided to give the kill to the vultures and sit up over a live buffalo, as the tigress would be likely to remain in the vicinity.
The moon was now nearly at the full and the night almost as bright as the day. The buffalo—a calf of two years—had a good feed of grass, and then lay down to chew the cud and doubtless, bemoan the hardness of his lot.
It was exactly ten o'clock when I heard him get up. Looking, I saw him staring towards the jungle to my right. Next moment I heard the footsteps of the tigress in the leaves. Until then she had made no sound, but now, knowing herself to be within certain rushing distance of her prey and that it could not escape her, gave up all concealment.
Putting up the field glasses I saw the head of the great brute come into the field of view; then came her long massive form, advancing with slow steps, every muscle ready for instant action and grim purpose in her whole attitude. The fine ruff she wore glistened brightly in the brilliant rays of the moon.
The buffalo remained motionless, staring at the apparition, but when the tigress was about fifteen feet distant he began to struggle to get free. That movement launched the dread beast at him.
I could have killed the tigress as she advanced on the buffalo, but wanted to see the whole affair. And, it was possible that she would have dashed away on the torch shining in her face, for she was an old and cunning beast. The buffalo had to die.
Instantly the killing was over and she appeared to be all on the alert. Then, without further delay, she seized the carcase to drag it away; but finding she could not do this, at once began to break open the hinder parts and commenced her gruesome meal of the still warm and quivering flesh. Nothing to shudder at! Only the same thing, on a larger scale, that your house cat does on most nights of his life.
Interested in all these happenings I delayed my shot overlong, for the beast ceased feeding all of a sudden and went straight off into the forest. She made no attempt to be quiet but went away barking through the jungle as if intoxicated with success, as no doubt she was. All sorts of noises did she make; belchings, zoo noises, queer throaty sounds. The whole forest was aware of her success, and I heard her go further and further away. The animals of the forest seemed to take no notice of her now, as there were no alarm calls; perhaps there were no animals in such an unhealthy neighbourhood, as there had been no announcements of her presence before the killing took place.
It was five hours before she returned, and that she did without a sound, or any warning from the forest dwellers. Instantly, she lay down at the tail end and recommenced her meal.
It was now three in the morning and there could be no further delay. To the light of the torch in her face she looked up. Her eyes shone like balls of emerald. The next instant she lay dead, a p.470 bullet in her neck behind the ears. Her life left her with a great sigh the sound of which came distinctly to my ears as the reverberations of the report of the heavy rifle died away in the stillness of the night.
She measured eight feet three inches between pegs, and weighed 280 lbs. Merciful was her end.
A few days later, a male tiger came past that place and had sun-grilled bones for supper. I sat up for him over a live buffalo but, although he was making zoo noises all around, he did not put in an appearance.
Then, a tigress passed a buffalo, tethered in a river bed, within a few yards, and failed to see it. It had to be tied a few yards—ten, perhaps it was—to one side of the path, but quite in the open. It is not unusual for tigers to miss tethered baits in this way, and such happenings are a strong argument against their having any power of winding their prey. On one occasion, two panthers passed a goat tethered in the open sand in the bed of the Narbada river and failed to see it. Their tracks were within twenty feet!
There followed some days of waiting, but I knew there would be a kill by the big male tiger mentioned above as it is the fixed habit of these felines to cover the same ground about every ten days. On the night of the first of March the expected kill took place. The kill was dragged a matter of five hundred yards, as the root to which the buffalo had been tethered gave way. Yet, it had looked sufficiently strong. Fortunately a suitable tree for the chair was near by, and by four o'clock I was quietly seated.
Beyond the heavy foot fall in the leaves there was no announcement by the jungle folk of the tiger's impending arrival. Just a few minutes earlier and there would have been a daylight shot. He did not pay any attention to the torch, or to the light arranged exactly over the kill to show, before the turning on of the torch, how he was lying, for the night was dark and the kill in deep shadow. He died as he lay, the back of his skull broken to pieces.
This shooting with the aid of a torch is a deadly business, and in course of time—and that not far distant—will have to be prohibited in many forests, or there will be no tigers left. Night shooting of this kind requires much endurance and also intimate knowledge of the habits of these great felines, besides much technique in the matter of numerous details. Fewer animals are wounded than is the case when beating—which is, of course, the more pleasurable method—and there is no risk to the unarmed villager without whose assistance one could obtain no shikar at all. But it is a form of shikar of which one gets tired. However, with a slender purse, and such indifferent beaters as the Korkus of the present day who have lost all their jungle instincts and are fast leaving the forests for the open country, the fitting up method is forced upon a large number of sportsmen.
(1929)
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* All temperatures are in Fahrenheit
A Further Letter from the Jungle
By 'Nimrod'
ur next shooting block was thirty miles south of the one in 'which I shot those three tigers of which I have given you the history. We sent on our camp kit early in the morning in the small bullock carts of this part of the country, and ourselves went in the car to a Rest House about ten miles along the road. Early the next morning we completed the short distance remaining, and found the carts arrived and our servants settling into the new residence.
Now, I have brought my news up to date and will be able, more or less, to tell you of things as they occur.
All the forests of this part of the country are of teak and bamboo, and the lie of the valleys between the
hills is mostly east and west. The average elevation of the main streams is about 1,600 feet above sea level, the adjacent hills being some three or four hundred feet higher, while those to the south of our present camp gradually extend by successive ridges and valleys to the main backbone of the Gawilgarh Hills, the highest point of which is over 3,500 feet in height.
It is now the 9th of April and the hot season is approaching as it is noticeably warmer than it has been, the temperature in the verandah rising to l00deg. in the middle of the day. But the nights are cool, the temperature falling rapidly after sundown. In the early morning it is as low as 56deg.
We are in the valley of a fair sized stream and, as in the Tapti valley so is the case here, all the trees being withered by the frost to a distinctly marked level. Some of the trees are recovering and putting out new leaves, while a few of the more hardy varieties are clothed in the brilliant green of their spring barb, thus giving to the forest the touch of colour needed to relieve the general sameness of the scenery.
As a rule there is not much colour in the forests of tropical countries; there are endless shades of green and brown and, at this season, autumn tints of every description. A few trees there are which gladden our eyes with splashes of colour. One of these—the 'ganiar' of the people—is a tree with a straight trunk which has large handsome saucer-shaped flowers of a bright yellow colour at the ends of the branches. These trees are now leafless, but their new foliage will appear in May. Another tree, also leafless at this time, has brilliant red flowers which are very conspicuous in the forest; it is a species of erythrina. Then, there is the well-known tree, called by Europeans 'The Flame of the Forest' on account of the brilliant colour of its velvet-like orange-red petals. Where these trees are plentiful the display of colour is a wonderful sight.