The maharaja catches tigers in the orthodox way. He has cages
of iron and the toughest kind of wood set upon wheels so that
they can be hauled into the jungle by oxen. When they reach a
suitable place the oxen are unhitched, the hunters conceal the
wheels and other parts of the wagon with boughs and palm leaves.
A sheep or a goat or some other animal is sacrificed and placed
in the cage for bait and the door is rigged so that it will remain
open in an inviting manner until the tiger enters and lifts the
carcass from the lever. The instant he disturbs the bait heavy
iron bars drop over the hole through which he entered and he is
a prisoner at the mercy of his captors. Sometimes the scheme
fails and the hunters lose their time and trouble and bait, but
being men of experience in such affairs they generally know the
proper place and the proper season to look for game. When the
watchers notify them that the trap is occupied they come with oxen
and haul it to town, where it is backed up against a permanent
cage in the menagerie, the iron door is lifted, and the tiger
is punched with iron bars until he accepts the quarters that
have been provided for him, and becomes a prisoner for life.
It is a terrible thing when a hungry and ugly man-eater comes
into a village, for the inhabitants are generally defenseless.
They have no guns, because the government does not allow the
natives to carry arms, and their only weapons are the implements
of the farm. If they would clear out and scatter the number of
victims would not be so large, but they usually keep together
for mutual defense, and, as a consequence, the animal has them
at his mercy. A man-eater that has once tasted human flesh is
never satiated, and attacks one victim after another until he
has made away with an entire village.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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