Shikar Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  On arrival here we were greeted with the news that there are seven tigers in the vicinity. I was also informed that the news of the countryside is that I have recently shot eight tigers. I fear the story of the seven is as inaccurate as that of the eight, for in walks abroad there is no sign of even one of the reputed seven. A bad sign at this camp is the silence at night. There are no alarm calls of sambur and other animals and no tracks of tiger, old or new. Panthers appear to be absent also.

  Yesterday—we have been here ten days now—news came from a village five miles away that a panther had killed a calf the previous afternoon. I went to the place and tracked up the kill, which was very neatly 'butchered' and placed in a clump of bamboos. There was a suitable tree close by and my machan chair soon in position. By five o'clock all was quiet, and the panther could be nowhere in the vicinity. I had every hope of his putting in an appearance at dusk, or soon after, but he did not turn up.

  Shortly before dark a lovely mongoose came and had a feed. He was bigger than usual and such a lithe, graceful animal with grey points to the hair of his sleek body and a fine black tip to his long tail. He reminded me of the several of his species which have been such interesting pets from time to time. No snakes, and no cockroaches, or spiders and such like, in one's house when there is a tame mongoose on the premises!

  I came away at 9 o'clock and got back to camp and a midnight dinner.

  We have a fine pool in the river not far from this bungalow, it is shaded by large trees and has much life about it, and in it. There are many kinds of birds, and almost daily we see the otters at play and the catching of fish. Others besides the otters like a fish diet. On any bare rock in the stream there are cormorants, and at one time or another I have seen four varieties of kingfisher there. One of these is so like the bird one sees in England that you could not tell the difference at sight. Perhaps, there is no difference. One of the others is a black and white bird about twice the size of the little one. His habit is to hover over the water about thirty feet up, plunge deep into the stream, and catch the minnows crosswise in his beak. A poet has described him as 'the pied fish-tiger o'er the pool', a very good description.

  The two other kingfishers are alike in coloulring, but different in size. Both have bright red bills, and their general appearance is blue and white, mostly blue. The smaller of these is half as big again as the 'fish tiger', while the larger one is more than twice as big again. Also, he is more rare, and only found in heavily wooded country.

  Every night, four buffaloes have been tied up at carefully selected places. One night, a panther passed one of the baits but did not touch it. That often happens in these forests. Fourteen days and no kill! But there is likely to be one , as this morning I saw the tracks of a big male tiger along one of the forest cart roads.

  It is three days since I wrote as above and I am still tigerless. The night after I saw the tracks, the tiger killed the bait in the river bed to the west of camp. The machan chair was already in position so there was a minimum of disturbance at the place. Owing to the very thick cover, and likelihood of there being no suitable tree near the kill if the tiger was permitted to drag it, the buffalo had been picketted with a wire rope.

  An all-night vigil had no result, but in the morning the tracks of the tiger were found in the river bed not far away. I feared that I had come across one of the many very cunning animals of these parts; but sat up the whole of the next night also. Then, it was evident the tiger did not intend to return to the kill and it was made over to the vultures.

  Time was running short so I decided to tie up at a place five miles down stream where I found tracks of this same tiger and learnt that his regular haunt was there, in thick cover, between the confluence of two rivers. Owing to the nature of the country a beat would not be likely to succeed so a machan chair was put up and a buffalo tethered on the tiger's tracks.

  That was on the night of the 29th. What a pity I did not sit up over the live buffalo!. That night he killed it and, a most unusual thing, broke the wire rope. He had unfortunately found the root of a shrub to give him the exact purchase required and was so able to exert the whole of his immense strength. The marks of "his fore paws were plain to see.

  I tracked up the drag of the kill and found it over a quarter of a mile away, well concealed under a mass of creepers. The tiger had fed at three places during the drag and eaten a great deal.

  There was fortunately a suitable tree handy for the machan chair; but it was unfortunately necessary to cut away much of the creepers in order to be able to see. All was quiet at half past four, and at half past seven when it was quite dark, I heard the well-known heavy tread among the leaves, a hundred yards behind me. The nights are very still and one can hear the slightest sound at that distance.

  The tiger was extremely cautious, stopping and listening and slowly coming nearer. No doubt, he sat down now and again, as he took nearly an hour to approach close enough to make up his mind that all was clear. Then I heard the quicker steps of the final direct approach and was full of confident expectation. Alas! it was not to be. Having come close enough to see the kill he was able to see that it was not as fully concealed as he had left it. For a tiger of his experience that was sufficient warning. He had no doubt, had a very convincing lesson on some previous occasion and had no intention of taking any risks. Of the watcher in the tree he had, I am sure, no knowledge by any of his senses. I heard his retreating footsteps and that was the last of him for that night.

  In the morning it was found that he had revisited the scene of his kill and removed a shin bone which he had left there.

  My permit for this block would be up soon, so I decided that my only sure way of bringing this cunning beast to bag would be to put up the big machan and sleep in it every night until he came along again, as he was sure to do. So, the night of the 31st saw me duly ensconced in a large tree and well screened in.

  Every afternoon at three o'clock I set off in a bullock cart, as it was too hot to walk with any pleasure, ate my dinner near the tree and was in the machan and settled down by half an hour before sunset. In the morning I would have a welcome cup of tea from a thermos flask and then walk the five miles back to camp.

  I am writing all this in the past tense as I have been disinclined for any writing during these strenuous days!

  On the evening of the 5th, I heard the moan of a tiger some way down the river and had hope of the expected kill taking place, but nothing happened. I knew the affair could not now be much delayed as the tiger was bound to be along his former round before long. I was getting tired of the game, but determined to sit him out to the last available moment.

  Patience was rewarded on the evening of the 6th—the eighth night's vigil for this beast. At twenty minutes past seven I heard his moaning call down river, same as on the previous evening. Then it came nearer: and at last there was a low call so near that it was certain he must come past me.

  There was no sound on the part of any forest animals to announce that the tiger was on the prowl. The buffalo was tethered exactly in the path through the small green bushes of the river bed along which he would come. I lay quietly on my back, listening for any slightest sound, but heard nothing.

  At ten minutes to eight there was a rush over the leaf strewn pebbles and a choked bellow on the part of the poor buffalo. In an instant I was sitting up, with rifle out of the loophole and torch shining on the striped hide of the slayer. One very quickly decides where exactly to place the bullet and the foresight gleamed brilliantly on the centre of the shoulder blades as the trigger was pressed.

  To the shot the tiger fell on his side exactly as seen in the photographs taken next morning; one from the machan, and the other from the slight elevation of a bullock cart. His tail beat the ground for a few seconds, but there was no other movement. After the tail was quiet, the buffalo's hind legs were kicking, so the tiger breathed his last before his victim ceased to live.

  The bite in the back of the neck it was that k
illed the buffalo; the tiger had not had time to break its neck. His jaws had opened and released the neck—I watched them gasping—but the claws of his left paw had scarcely released the left side of the buffalo's cheek, so instantaneous had been his death.

  All four feet of the tiger are beneath the body of the buffalo. They fell together.

  I was well content to have successfully concluded my eighth night's vigil for this beast. His length was nine feet between pegs and his weight four hundred pounds, forearm 19 inches. Not a very big tiger, but of the ordinary size of those of these jungles. There was no sign of any former injury by bullet. The villagers were well pleased to be rid of this beast which had taken toll of their cattle for years and would still be doing so but for the pertinacious 'Nimrod'.

  Now, the tiger is skinned and pegged out and I have told you all about him, I can hark back to tell you of other jungle affairs.

  I often get up in the dark and hie off to the forests to see animals. I frequently saw sambur and four-horned antelope. Although the leaves are very dry, one can, by moving slowly and carefully, at the same time keeping the wind in the right direction, get quite close enough to see very well with the aid of field glasses. Where animals are seldom hunted, as the case here, they are n6t so quick at detecting one as when they have been stalked and fired at.

  Often, the sambur feed along quite unware that anyone is near them. The hinds with fawns keep separate from the stage. One stag I saw had fair horns—perhaps, 36 inches—and was exceptionally dark in colour. I have seen no stags anything approaching 40 inches and there is no doubt that to obtain a sambur head of such a size as to be of any value to a sportsman as a trophy, is a far more difficult undertaking than the killing of a tiger, unless of course, one happens to chance upon the beast on a fortunate occasion.

  These forests seem to be overstocked with small stags; I see a great many. One day, several sambur came to within a few feet of me as I sat at the foot of a tree. Alas! My camera had been forgotten. When one gets on in years there is more desire to see than to destroy, and during the lives of the coming generation public opinion will more and more condemn the killing of wild animals. It is better to let live than to destroy, and the time is approaching when, if the hand of man is not stayed, there will be but few animals left to hunt! 'What about your own slayings?' you say. My answer is that my senile softness of heart does not extend to the greater carnivora; not yet at any rate!

  Many people do not sit up at night, but to me there is a great charm about it. One learns to recognise the alarm calls of all the animals of the jungle; and the cries of the night birds, too. It was on one of those eight nights that I learnt to know the sound made by a porcupine; but whether he always makes the noise on his nightly wanderings, or whether this was a special occasion, I do not know. There was a loud expulsion and taking in of breath— such a noise as you can make for yourself by blowing out and inhaling quickly through your nose, doing it quickly—and I could not imagine what it could be. The tracks in the morning showed beyond any doubt what animal it was which had been puffing and blowing all around my tree.

  I have wandered on and forgotten all about that panther story which I mentioned in the early part of this letter. It is in illustration of the want of fear evidenced by animals tethered in the forest as bait for the carnivora.

  Sometimes, when one is dull in camp during the day, it is pleasant to take a book and ensconce oneself in a tree by a jungle pool, with a picketted goat to call up any panther which may be within hail. On one occasion—it was midday and the attendants had not gone a hundred yards—the bleating of the goat called up a panther from his siesta in a neighbouring ravine. He came trotting through the trees after the manner of an eager dog, halting for a second or so now and again as if he could hardly realise his good fortune at obtaining such an easy meal. Up to the goat he trotted, to be met by a lowered head. A feint of a lifted paw by the panther was countered by a butt from the fearless goat—the fearlessness of ignorance. Another feint by the panther, and in an instant he would have made the fatal attack: but his intention and his life were ended by a bullet in the chest. Down he sat exactly in his tracks, and as life-like as possible to the astonished goat which just sniffed at him and went on unconcernedly with his meal of thorn leaves. A panther without experience this and, though full grown, his weight of 100 lbs. for his length of 5 ft. 11 inches showed that he had not yet attained his full proportions; a young man just leaving College, in fact.

  Now, we are packing up, our shikar in these parts at an end for the present, and in a couple of days will be a couple of hundred miles away, selves bound for a Hill Station and camp kit to be stored until again required. Such is the facility with which one can move about in these days of motor transport. Our one ton lorry is brought to our forest camp and takes all our belongings to destination for the very reasonable hire of eight annas a mile.

  So, I end this long letter which takes to you a breath of the jungle—a pretty hot one just now!—and shall hope to give further history of our doings at some future time.

  (1929)

  The Panther and The Shepherd

  By C.H. Donald

  here are few places in India, where conditions permit, where the shepherds and panthers have not a bowing acquaintance with each other, but the Kangra Valley, with its huge range of mountains and valleys clothed in dense scrub and oak jungles rather lends itself to this state of affairs.

  During the bi-annual migration of sheep to and from their summer grazing grounds, panthers have a high old time and get fat, and the Guddis, on the other hand, tend to become lean from their nightly vigils and continual guard over their flocks.

  You have only to ask a Guddi whether there are any panther; about and, if you are unacquainted with his ways, you will go away with the impression that life is not worth living and there are more panthers in the valley than there are goats and sheep but that is only his little way of telling you that some damage has been done among his flocks. If you are a novice, and decide to take him at his word, and accept his invitation to visit his flock and sit up over a goat for the marauder who is doing untold damage, you will come away a sadder and wiser mar without having seen so much as one spot of his glossy sleek coat.

  Not that panthers are not there, but shepherds are everywhere when this migration begins and a panther can take his choice from among twenty or thirty flocks each night, and unless he is a fool, or extraordinarily attached to one flock, he makes a wide selection and range, and you might continue to sit over your goat for a week, while he kills everywhere except where you want him to. The shepherds, instead of helping you, do their best to hinder. They'll gladly give you a live goat to sit up over, knowing quite well that you'll pay for the goat if killed, and also backshish will be forthcoming if the panther is shot, but to give you kubbar of a freshly killed goat and to lead you thither is quite another matter. Often the goat, or sheep, is never found, but when it is, the Guddi thinks first of Number One, and that is himself. "That goat will be perfectly good to eat, but if the Sahib insists on sitting over it for a couple of nights, it certainly will not be, and who knows whether the panther will come and be shot or not, so let us take what the gods provide and eat the goat, and let the Sahib and the panther take their chance somewhere else." So says, and thinks the old Guddi, with the result that he will give you kubbar of a cow (which he does not eat), but never of a sheep or goat.

  Should he, however, bring you notice of a goat that has been killed, you may be sure that what remains is neither fit for his consumption nor that of the felines and you can save yourself the trouble of going.

  In spite of his knowledge of panthers and their ways, the Guddi is about the worst shikari you can find. Before I had had much experience of them, I gave them instructions to build a machan for me over a very freshly killed bullock, while I returned to have some lunch. They knew all about machans and had built hundreds, so they said, and I came away confident that I should get the panther that night. On my re
turn, however, one glance at the tree and the machan, precluded the very smallest hope of anything but a blind panther coming near that kill. They had carefully cut down every branch and exposed the machan from every side, as they said, to enable me to get a good view all round. That the panther would also be able to get a good view of me from every side had never crossed their minds! Very occasionally a gun-possessed Guddi decides to sit up himself, and then he invites two or three pals to share his machan and his vigil with him, and they construct a platform on a tree which can be seen from half a mile, and come away next morning like martyrs in a good cause, because they have seen nothing. But, of course, there are Guddis and Guddis and there are a few exceptions to prove the rule, and some of them do occasionally shoot panthers. An amusing case came to my notice recently. A panther had done a good deal of damage in a village, so some half a dozen shepherds decided to take a share in building a trap for him. It took them several days' hard work collecting stones and it was really a fine structure they erected, and having wasted many days of their hard labour, the trap was never set, as they could not agree between them who should supply the kid to put into the trap as a bait!

  A panther is an enigma. There are occasions when he proves himself to be the most cunning animal under the sun, and yet the very next day he will walk into an obvious trap that no self-respecting jackal would ever go near. One day a panther will prove himself to be an arrant coward and run like a hare from a couple of dogs, and the very next he will dash in among half a dozen men sitting round a camp fire, and remove a dog from their midst.

  The "sawing" roar of the panther is frequently heard where these animals are to be found and one of the reasons given for this call is that the animal gives himself courage to approach a camp, by roaring lustily when he is still a little distance from it. Be this as it may, it (the call) is probably also a sexual one to give notice to its mate as to the animal's whereabouts, as it is sometimes heard miles away from any camp or village.