'The twelve footer was so heavy that my uncle (C.A.S.) tells me no
number of mahouts could lift it. Several men, if they could have
approached at one and the same time, might have been able to do so,
but a sufficient number of men could not lay hold simultaneously to
move the body from the ground.
'Eventually a number of bamboos had to be cut, and placed in an
incline from the ground to the elephant's saddle while the elephant
knelt down, and up this incline the tiger had to be regularly hauled
and shoved, and so fastened on the elephant.
'He (the tiger) mauled four elephants, one of whom died the same day,
and one other had a narrow _batch_, i.e. escape, of its life.
In another communication to me, my friend goes over the same ground,
but as the matter is one of interest to sportsmen and naturalists, I
will give the extract entire. It proceeds as follows:--
'Tigers grow to great lengths, some assert to even fourteen feet. I do
not say they do not, but such cases are very rare, and require
authentication. The longest I have seen, measured as he lay, eleven
feet one inch (see "Oriental Sporting Magazine," for July, 1871, p.
308). He was seven feet nine inches from tip of nose to root of tail;
root of tail one foot three inches in circumference; round chest four
feet six inches; length of head one foot two inches; fore arm two feet
two inches; round the head two feet ten inches; length of tail three
feet four inches.
'Besides this, I have shot another eleven feet, and one ten feet
eleven inches.
'The largest tigress I have shot was at Sahareah, which measured ten
feet two inches. I shot another ten feet exactly.' (See O.S.M., Aug.,
1874, p. 358.)
'I have got the head of a tiger, shot by Joe, which measured eleven
feet five inches. It was shot at Baraila.
'The male is much bigger built in every way--length, weight, size,
&c., than the female. The males are more savage, the females more
cunning and agile. The arms, body, paws, head, skull, claws, teeth,
&c., of the female, are smaller. The tail of tigress longer; hind legs
more lanky; the prints look smaller and more contracted, and the toes
nearer together. It is said that though a large tiger may venture to
attack a buffalo, the tigress refrains from doing so, but I have found
this otherwise in my experience.
'I have kept a regular log of all tigers shot by me. The average
length of fifty-two tigers recorded in my journal is nine feet six and
a half inches (cubs excluded), and of sixty-eight tigresses (cubs
excluded), eight feet four inches.
'The average of tigers and tigresses is eight feet ten and a quarter
inches. This is excluding cubs I have taken alive.'
As to measurements, he goes on to make a few remarks, and as I cannot
improve on them I reproduce the original passage:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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