Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore: With chapters on coffee planting in Coorg, the Mysore representative assembly, the Indian congress, caste and the Indian silver question, being the 38 years' experiences of a Mysore planterElliot, Robert H. (Robert Henry)
History
Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore: With chapters on coffee planting in Coorg, the Mysore representative assembly, the Indian congress, caste and the Indian silver question, being the 38 years' experiences of a Mysore planter
Elliot, Robert H. (Robert Henry)
Caste -- India; Coffee; Karnataka (India) -- Description and travel; Karnataka (India) -- Politics and government
I can easily understand that, as Mr. Sanderson says, there is a
considerable charm and interest connected with this method (and in some
cases it is the only method) of pursuing tigers, but I can see that it
requires much experience, caution, and patience, and I would particularly
advise those interested in this matter to consult Mr. Sanderson's valuable
work.
I have often found in conversation that people are surprised to find that
tigers eat tigers when a suitable opportunity for doing so presents
itself, but considering that man still, in some parts of the world, eats
his fellow man, it seems to me extremely natural that a tiger should eat a
tiger. I have, however, only met with one instance which occurred in my
neighbourhood, and in this case I am strongly inclined to think that the
eaten tiger was first of all killed. The incident occurred in this way.
Shortly before my arrival in India one winter, my manager wounded a tiger,
but I do not think very severely, as the tiger not only travelled at least
two miles, but ascended a mountain up to a considerable elevation. Along
one side of the mountain is a rather long strip of forest, which is a
favourite place for tigers either to pass through or lie up in, as it is
quite out of any village-to-village route, and had the tiger been hard hit
he would certainly have remained there. But not only did he not do so, but
skirting the jungle, or passing through it, he climbed up a steep ascent,
evidently with the view of going into the next valley, and near the top of
the ascent his living history ends. Knowing from the direction taken by
the wounded tiger that he would probably be in the jungle on the mountain
side, my manager had it beaten on the day following, when a tiger came out
which he took to be the wounded tiger, and which he killed. It then turned
out that it was not the wounded tiger, but a fresh tiger with the wounded
tiger, or nearly all the meat of it, inside him, and all that was
recovered was the head and the skin of the chest, which I saw after my
arrival, and which was sent in to Government for the reward, and by the
size of the head it must have been a fine tiger. When I visited the jungle
in 1891, I carefully cross-examined the natives in the matter, and they
said that they could not say whether the tiger had died from wounds or
whether he had been killed by the tiger that had carried off and eaten the
body, but they were positive that it was a tiger that had eaten the body,
from the tracks, for the body had been taken down to water, on the margin
of which no other tracks but those of a tiger were visible, and these were
clearly defined. They could also be distinctly traced from the place in
the open grassland whence the body was carried. Taking all the
circumstances into consideration--the distance travelled, the steepness of
the ground, and the fact that the tiger passed a favourable jungle for
lying in, I am strongly of opinion, in fact, I consider it almost certain,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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