"No" to normalizing Pocari Sweat

My First Tiger

Your readers have probably seen this heading two or three times already, but as other peoples' first tigers were not related to my first tiger, it still possesses the charm of novelty, as far as I am concerned. The manner in which he was converted into an ornament for the drawing room was as follows. As I was opening my letters, one morning, I come across a demi-official looking cover which contained a report of the death of a would-be shikari at the hands, or rather claws, of an inſuriated tiger. Two native shikaris had spent a pleasant evening in a “machan” over a 1 of water, and by the light of a waning moon had put a bullet into Mr. Stripes' shoulder; Stripes roared, the Shikaris shivered, and Stripes' mother came up to enquire into the cause of the bad language her son was using; when she saw him going on three legs, she used such fearful expressions that the “machan” shook with the agitation of the shikaris, unused as they were to anything stronger than the ordinary polite language of a native village. Mrs. Stripes helped her son back to the cover of the jungle, and silence reigned around the “machan" where the shikaris sat and shivered till sunrise, when, with rapid steps and many a glance over their shoulder, they made tracks for the nearest human habitation. There, about twenty men soon collected, and our shikaris, whose courage and imagination had been warmed by the sun, told their tale: the tiger was an enormous one, and the tigress still larger; their roars had shaken the hills; the tiger was mortally wounded and was certainly dead by this time; were they going to lose the sircar reward or were they going to show their courage by tracking a dead tiger and skinning it; and were they not twenty to one, and he a corpse! Armed with antiquated spears, guns more dangerous to the shooter than the shot at, billhooks and axes, they started in quest of the dead beast. Arrived at the “machan,” their eagerness for the fray began to diminish, they spoke in whispers and kept sharp eyes on the surrounding jungle; but blood was plentiful on the track, and no tiger could lose so much blood and live, so their spirits rose and they followed the trail gaily for a mile and a half, by which time they had grown careless in the absolute certainty that they would find nothing but a lifeless mass at end. In this they were mistaken, for with a sudden roar, a crash and a spring, Stripes stood among them; they scattered like mice before a cat, but Stripes was too quick for one of them; he caught him by the waist and quietly carried him to the foot of a tree, among the upper branches of which two of the beaters had taken refuge; they were unarmed, but yelled and shouted, and others in other trees did likewise, while some of the most distant slipped off their perches picked up their guns and fired them in the air. The general din had the desired effect; Stripes left his victim and slipped away to cover, where he was left in peace; the man was fearfully mauled, but still alive; his companions did what they could for him and carried him back to his village where he died an hour later. 
My correspondent only gave me an outline of the story, and finished up with an appeal to me to send down somebody to shoot a man-eating tiger as nobody dared go into the jungle until he was accounted for. 
I threw the letter across the table to M. who perused and returned it in silence: even when I asked him if he was "game," his only reply was a withering look and slight curl of his upper lip, so I said no more. It was three days before we could get away, but at last we found ourselves in a small inspection shed within a couple of miles of the ravine which had been the scene of the catastrophe already related. A consultation with some old native shikaris followed; how were we to get at Stripes, or obtain evidence of his death? No elephants were available, so we must walk, and walk circumspectly as the jungle was thick, and the tiger if alive was likely to be a dangerous customer. It would be useless driving cows in, for they would bolt at the first tigery sniff brought on the breeze; buffaloes would be better, but there were none in the adjoining villages; goats, said an old shikari, will do the trick; if the tiger is dead they will walk up to him and give tongue: if he is alive he will take one ; the others will bolt, but we shall track him by the blood of the one he takes. Now, although I should have been exceedingly pleased if Stripes had been able and willing to slay ten thousand goats, I was loath to countenance the admission of those universal exterminators into a reserved forest, but without goats, not a man would come with us to show us the ravine, so reluctantly I gave orders for the goats to be brought and marched in. They behaved beautifully; walked along steadily, till we reached the entrance to the ravine; then spread out like a line of beaters and walked through the thick jungle; we had about a dozen native shikaris with us, and they showed no desire to lead the way; we visited the scene of the tragedy, found one shoe and a sanguinary cloth on the ground, and walked on for about 100 yards; we had come over a mile and a half with our rifles at full cock, and every nerve strained, through thick jungle in which a tiger might have lain within five yards of us without being seen, and had just emerged into more open ground when the goats stampeded; instantly a babel of voices broke out in the tops of the trees behind us, and looking round, we discovered most of our shikaris well out of harm's way and looking anything but happy; two or three however stood their ground, and as soon as it was evident that Stripes was not following the goats, we walked cautiously round to where the stampede had commenced. Stripes heard us coming, and carried his goat off into a thicket before we could catch sight of him, but the fresh blood still sliding down the blades of grass showed that we were not far behind; we sat down and smoked a cigarette each, waiting for the other men to come up ; then cautiously approached the thicket and walking along the edge tried to see into it. We had not gone twenty yards when we saw the dead goat about 20 feet from the edge; Stripes was invisible though he must have been sitting there while we were enjoying our smokes. A small “machan” was soon fixed up about fifteen yards from the kill, and ten feet from the ground, and there we took our seats with one native shikari, whose sharp eyes and ears we thought would be useful. For an hour and a half we sat there, and the discomfort was awful; first one leg went to sleep, and the least attempt to move it produced a variety of creaky noises; then the other leg followed suit; finally I felt that I must move, and slowly I leant back till my head rested against a leafy pillow. I woke up suddenly finding the shikari's hand on my shoulder; he was trembling from head to foot and I was thankful that we had not allowed him to bring a gun with him; his eyes were nearly starting out of his head as he pointed with a drunkard's hand to a loophole on my left; I tried to rise silently but he signalled me back, and from the motion of his hand I understood that the tiger was walking round the machan on his way back to the goat; as soon as the shikari's hand showed that Stripes had his tail towards, me, I raised myself slowly to a sitting posture; M. looked round and shook his head, then got his eye in a line with his sights again. A twig broke; then another; then a huge paw appeared under the brushwood six feet beyond the goat; then a whisker, a nose, another paw, and a head. Bang, bang, went our expresses, and a cloud of smoke shut out the view for what seemed half an hour, though really two seconds would have covered it. When the air cleared, stripes was lying “all of a heap” and the "coup de grace" which I intended for his head caught him in the shoulder which was about the only part of him visible. He took it very quietly; neither moved nor spoke; in spite of which we deemed it wise to take precautions, M. covering the earcase with his rifle while I descended to terra firma, when I did likewise for him; we approached cautiously, and heaved half a brick at his Majesty's nose; it caught him fair on the bridge, without producing any visible or audible effect on his temper. We had already signalled for the other shikaris, and as soon as they came up, stripes was dragged out and measured; seven feet nine inches from nose to tip of tail, and twenty one inches round his fore leg; he was hoisted on two poles and we started back for camp. I almost forgot to add that he was not the wounded beast we were after, but we took it for granted that that one had died from the effects of his wounds. Now, will some old shikari tell me how to measure a tiger; should the tape be held taut, or made to follow every curve of the animal's back? My measurement was with the tape held taut; later on, after his skin had been removed and laid out, it measured ten feet six inches, and I then began to understood the possibility of twelve feet tigers.

—"Tserofski" in INDIAN FORESTER A MONTHLY MAGAZINE of FORESTRY, AGRICULTURE, SHIKAR & TRAVEL. EDITED BY E. E. FERNANDEZ,VOLUM E XVII I891