'A young tiger!' 'Bagh ka butcha!' screams our mahout, and regardless
of the elephant or of our cries to stop, he scuttled down the pad rope
like a monkey down a backstay, and clutching a young dead tiger cub,
threw it up to Debnarain; it was about the size of a small poodle, and
had evidently been trampled by the pursuing herd of buffaloes.
'There may be others,' said the gomasta; and peering into every bush,
we went slowly on.
The elephant now shewed decided symptoms of dislike and a reluctance
to approach a particular dense clump of grass.
A sounding whack on the head, however, made her quicken her steps, and
thrusting the long stalks aside, she discovered for us three blinking
little cubs, brothers of the defunct, and doubtless part of the same
litter. Their eyes were scarcely open, and they lay huddled together
like three enormous striped kittens, and spat at us and bristled their
little moustaches much as an angry cat would do. All the four were
males.
It was not long ere I had them carefully wrapped in the mahout's
blanket. Overjoyed at our good fortune, we left the excited buffaloes
still executing their singular war-dance, and the angry tigress,
robbed of her whelps, consuming her soul in baffled fury.
We heard her roaring through the night, close to camp, and on my
friends' arrival, we beat her up next morning, and she fell pierced by
three bullets, after a fierce and determined charge. We came upon her
across the nullah, and her mind was evidently made up to fight. Nearly
all the villagers had turned out with the line of elephants. Before we
had time to order them away, she came down upon the line, roaring
furiously, and bounding over the long grass,--a most magnificent
sight.
My first bullet took her full in the chest, and before she could make
good her charge, a ball each from Pat and Captain G. settled her
career. She was beautifully striped, and rather large for a tigress,
measuring nine feet three inches.
It was now a question with me, how to rear the three interesting
orphans; we thought a slut from some of the villages would prove the
best wet nurse, and tried accordingly to get one, but could not. In
the meantime an unhappy goat was pounced on and the three young-tigers
took to her teats as if 'to the manner born.' The poor Nanny screamed
tremendously at first sight of them, but she soon got accustomed to
them, and when they grew a little bigger, she would often playfully
butt at them with her horns.
The little brutes throve wonderfully, and soon developed such an
appetite that I had to get no less than six goats to satisfy their
constant thirst. I kept the cubs for over two months, and I shall not
soon forget the excitement I caused, when my boat stopped at
Sahribgunge, and my goats, tiger cubs, and attendants, formed a
procession from the ghat or landing-place, to the railway station.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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