"Sportsmen" Who Do Not Sport.

Evening Star, Issue 7337, 8 October 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

"Sportsmen" Who Do Not Sport.

The tiger, as many people know, is a dangerous animal; dangerous not only to human life, hut to human reputation. The heat of India is considerable, and it may possibly force the imagination as it forces the vegetation. Combine the beast and the climate, and the product is sometimes extraordinary. Very many years ago my brother and I met an Indian officer at the hotel at Slapton Lea; and we, who had been content with pike, questioned him as to tigers. "A tiger," he said, "is a creature, I think, carnivorous, having a head, a tail, and four legs, but beyond that I know nothing; or, at any rate, the rest is silence." We pursued our inquiries, and found that this gentleman had shot several tigers, but he quietly declined to indulge us with details. He only remarked that the beast was a prolific source of falsehood ; that half the tales told about hunting him were absolutely untrue ; and that a considerable portion of the other half were greatly exaggerated. That is so, I dare say —though possibly our friend himself put a dash of crimson on his brush, when he painted the falsehoods which he decried. Indeed, I have heard men lament ttfe evils of a past life with such exceeding unction that they have repeated at the moment a portion of the fault for which they expressed contrition. Well, there is nothing like a moral ! Do not, then, recount in too strong language the eccentricities of imagination to which the tiger hunter is sometimes a prey, lest you, too, deviate a littye from the straight path of rectitude. / I remember very well—though surely it must be twenty years ago, pnd so will some of the older readers of/ ' The Field' —a couple of inimitable tales told by the late Mr Francis Francis. .Whence they came, or whether he invented.them, I do not know ; but they were burlesque upon burlesque—the splendid grotesqueness of exaggeration upon exaggeration pure and simple. I have never seen then/in print since I read them all those\lonjf years ago; but I have told them a hundred times, and have caught myself bursting out into little jets of laughter as I have thought of them in private. Let me give them very shortly:— •'When we were at Ram-Goree-Singh," said the colonel, "we found an infinity of different kinds of game large, small, daugeroua, and timid. For myself, I always weut out with my shot-gun; but one barrel was loaded with bullet, the other with No. 8 shot. I well remember on one occasion an elephant and a snipe getting up at the same moment. I shot right and left, and both fell."

" Bless my soul, colonel!" said someone, " you don't say that; you were indeed fortunate."

" I was; but that is not the most extraordinary part of the affair. When I went to pick them up, I found that I had killed the snipe with the bullet and the elephant with the snipe shot." It seems that the colonel was given to these pleasant fictions, and some of the officers determined to lay a trap for him; a thing of course to be done neatly and with delicacy, for was he not their colonel. Many attempts were made, but as the climax approached they were allowed to drop, as it was of course impossible to give the lie direct. At length the colonel showed a loose plate in his armor. He permitted himse'f to recount the following little adventure : " There were a good many peacocks at the time, and after much Bport I brought down a brace, right and left, very handsomely (those were the days of muzzle-loaders), but whatjwas my horror in discovering that close to me, within an easy spring, crouched one of the largest Bengal tigers I ever saw. I was of course helpless, and gave myself up for lost. The beast gathered itself to spring ;it sprang. When it was in mid-air I heard a report behind me; a bullet cut off a portion of my whisker, and struck the tiger full in the chest; he fell dead at my feet."

" By Jove, colonel, that was, etc." "It was ; but that was not the most extraordinary part of the story. I never saw the man who fired that shot, nor have I since seen him. I have long wished to do so, however, in order that I might thank him for so nobly saving my life. It would be delightful to shake hands with him." " Give us your paw, then, colonel," said an Irish officer, one of the guests of the evening ; " for I am the very man myself." I think it is added that the colonel's imagination seemed to dwindle in some measure after that. —' Field.'