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
There can be no doubt that tigers, like men, are often very undecided how
to act, and it would be interesting if we could penetrate their state of
mind. Shall I attack, or shall I do nothing? and in the end, after long
deliberation, the tiger will determine on doing nothing, and walk off. Of
his state of mind the following is an instance. On one occasion I left my
pony on the side of a hill just outside the forest, and went for a stalk
over the mountain above. I could see nothing, and thought it would be well
to take a seat and wait in case any game might turn up. I had not been
seated more than a few minutes when one of my people, pointing downward,
said, "There is a tiger," and we could see him at the foot of the hill
about quarter of a mile away, walking steadily across a piece of open
land to the forest beyond. Just as he disappeared my horse-keeper came up
alone, and evidently in a most agitated state, and no wonder, for we had
no sooner got out of his sight when, a tiger appeared from the jungle and
lay down on the ground just above the pony and crouched. The horse-keeper
had another man with him, but he not unnaturally said that he was afraid
to come and tell us, as he thought that there was safety in numbers, and
that the tiger might attack the pony if it was left with only one man. The
tiger must have thus remained in a state of low doubt for at least half an
hour. Finally he got up and left them, and, from the direction he took,
was evidently the identical tiger which we had seen from the hill top.
Tigers, like wolves and other animals, form plans, communicate them to
their companions, and conjointly carry them out. A friend of mine was once
the subject of an excellent instance of this. He was out stalking one day,
and with his glass was scanning the country carefully, when he made out a
long way off, in a piece of open grassland which was surrounded by forest,
three tigers looking in his direction. They evidently saw that there was
something on the hillside, but the distance was, for them, too great to
make out what. After steadily looking at him some time the tigers
evidently formed their plan of operations, and plunged into the forest
towards him. The tigers had taken my friend and his man for game of some
kind, and had determined on a united stalk and drive, and, when they
appeared, two remained at the edge of the jungle, while the third made a
circuit evidently with the view of coming upon the supposed game from
above. But presently they discovered their mistake and went off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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