A BOOK OF THE MY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2116, 13 September 1894, Page 49

A BOOK OF THE MY.

SPORT IN MTSOEE.*

A very attractively-written book isMrß. E. Elliot's "Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting In Mysore," and its binding is equally attractive. After some preliminary observations and an. account of the scenery and government of Mysore, in the course of which we gather that Mr Elliot has the same view of the so-called Indian National CoDgress as most Anglo-Indians bave, we come to the natural history and: sport chapters, to unIndxanised Englishmen the moßt interesting in the book.

Mi Elliot seems to have been particularly fortunate in meeting with tigers during bis long residence of 37 years hi Mysore, and dwellg witb great gusto on their strength and Intelligence, though he seems to/ share tile- native opinion of the bears being more formidable to human beings. When they first. set the -new pit-trapß for tigers, inMysore 48 were caught in- one pit, and no less than 70 hi another r ftat after that the tigers seem to have warned each other in gome way,, for. not a single other one was caught. He gives numerous instances oftheir power of dragging and carrying, heavy . animate ; of their knack of; creeping oret dead leaves in, silence,. when they are stalking; of -their shyness in. going near, a bait secured with ropes ; of their' occasional Climbing-; of two or three tigers planning out and executing a joint stalking of prey ; of the tiger's fear of a rearing horse ; and one instance of a tiger being scared by a human yell. One of bis best tiger stories" is coa r. tiges.

Mr A. told me that he once wounded a tiger which afterwards sprang on him, knocked him down, and seized him. by the hand and arm. With Mr A., was- a- large dog, half mastiff and half nolygar (a savage and. rare native breed), which at once attacked the tiger, and diverted it» attention from Mr A. After driving' off the dog the tiger again returned to Mr A., and commenced- to worry him, but was, again attacked by the dog. The dog was. thus driven off about three or four times by the tiger. The tiger was all this time losing strength from his wounds, and the laat time he returned to Mr A. died on him. The dag was uninjured. New conies the most curious and' interesting part of the story. The dog, who was not affectionate generally, and indifferent to being noticed, belonged to Mr A.'s brother, and had previously taken no interest in anyone but his master ; but after this event he refused to go home with his master, and stuck closely to the wounded man, and when Borne carbolic was applied by Mr A.'s brother which caused pain to the wound, the dog began to growl, and showed signs of displeasure. The dog would not allow anyone to come near Mr A. except his own special servant, and lay under the bed with his nose sticking out, and keeping close guard. When Mr A. waß carried to the doctor some 35 miles away the dog went too, and on the doctor applying carbolic and setting the bones, which caused pain, the dog at once seized the doctor by the leg (evidently looking upon him as tiger No. 2, I suppose). In about three montfcn, meeting Mr A. by chance, he merely' acknowledged him by the faintest wag of his tail. A year afterwards thiß dog, happening to meet the doctor, whom he had not met since, at once flew at him and seized him by the trousers.

He has something appropriate to say about the old vexed question as to whether tbe tiger strikes at the throat or the nape of the neck.' The natiTes in his part always said that an animal was 1 killed by- a panther when its throat had been attacked, and by a tiger when it was struck in the nape. He considers that with tigers the size of the animal attacked- may. have a good deal to do with it. Another problem of interest to sportsmen is touched on — namely t DO TIGERS KILL WITH THE PAW? Mr Sanderson does'" not in the least believe that the paw is so used, but Captain Williamson considers the paw as "the invariable engine of destruction." " I have seen," he says, " many men and oxen that had been killed by tigers, in, most of which no mark of a claw could be seen." I have not paid much attention to this subject, but I do recollect one instance of a bullook that had been killed by a blow of the paw, as I remember being struck by the fact that there was no apparent cause of death, but on a closer examination I found a wide bruise, - evidently from the tiger's paw, on the side of the head. ▲ friend of mine of great experience" tells me that he has known, af animals . being killed by a blow of the paw. That men are pommonly killed bj a blow of the paw on. the head I have little doubt. Captain Williamson mentions a case that occurred' in his' presence, asd X knew.' of a doctor who had examined seven bodies, and in 1 each case- the skull had beeit fractured by. a blow of the paw,, General Price, when giving an account of the seizure of Cornet Elliot, mentions that he- had a narrow escape from a blow of the tigress's paw, which he guarded off with his uplifted rifle. The stock of the rifle was marked with the claws, while the trigger and guard were knocked completely flat on one side, so that the gun was useless until repaired. There is no doubt, then, that the tiger can, and. does* sometimes, use his paw with deadly effect, though I have little doubt that he prefers to use his teeth, aa the shock of a blow to the paw must, hi the case of a bullock at any rate, be very considerable.

There Is one rather naive passage in which Mr Elliot offers advice to people Buffering, from heart disease who go oat to shoot tigers — not the kind of exercise one would «xpeot s doctor to recommend under the circumstances. But he speaks from personal' experience : HEABT DI9HA3B AND TIGEHS. Now, when the tiger roared, which he did as be approached me, and he lay watching me, I felt no sensation of the heart, though I felt a distinct flutter when loading, and when the tiger was wriggling away. On the following day, however, I felt my heart to be rather worse, and I attributed this to exposure to the can.

I must say, though, that I had my attention strongly turned to the necessity of not allowing myself to be excited, in case it should be bad for my heart, and the power of the will must n ° doubt have much effect in controlling the action of the heart. Anyone who has anything the matter wilh bis heart should take digitalis before going out, and also take a few doses of this tonic with nim, as well as some very strong beef tea,. He should alio endeavour to

tZ w^tnJft?' a^SS^/katfrgin Mysore." 3&f\ 3}™*°* *&rcM6ald Constable and Co.

go after the tiger in the morning or l&te afternoon, and lie in a cool place in the jungle in the heat of the day, as I am quite sure, from my own experience, that exposure to much sun heat is bad for the heart. As heart disease, from the excitement of life, is becoming more common, these hints may be useful.

It is startling to learn that poisoning by human agencies i 3 responsible for the bulk of the

ALLEGED SNAKE BITES.

I have good reason to suppose that the immense number of deaths 1 (sometimes returned »t 17,000 or 18,000 for aH India) repotted as being caused by them are really poisoning caseß which are falsely returned as being due to snake bite.

Ho broached this theory to a couple of civilians on aP. and O. boat. They demurred', but admitted that during 24 years in India they had never seen a death from snake bite. Among all the first-class passengers there was only one person who had seen a single case— her gardener. Not one of the second-class passengers had seen a case-, though, one of them had been surveying new country for 10 year*. In 37 years in Mysore he himself had never known but one" case, and that was a boy ; and in' Bangalore, a place full of cobras, only three cases were proved to have occurred in a

MUBDEB, NOT SNAKE BITE. How is. it, then, that such an infinitesimal number of the cases reported on occur with the cognisance of Europeans? And unless some competent observer is at hand to determine the cause of death, what can bs easier than to poison a man, puncture his skin, and then point to the puncture as an evidence that death was caused by a snake bite P

He points out what I have go often heard insisted upon by people living in snaky countries, that, with, certain well-known exceptions, such, as tbe Australian tiger snake and the' West Indian fcr-de-lance, snakes are timid and inoffensive.

THH TIMIDITY OP COBBAS.

Of one thing I feel certain, and that is that the cobra is a timid snake, that it is not at all inclined to bite, and unless assailed and so infuriated will not bite even if trodden on by accident, as long as the snake is not hurt, which, of course, it would not be if trodden on by the bare foot, and that is why, I feel sure, I have so rarely heard of a man being bitten by a snake during my long experience in India.

His English servant, softly slippered, trod a cobra into some soft mud made by the escape of bath water.

THE WISDOM OP THE SBHPENT.

He had stepped on to about the middle of tho snake's body, but probably rather nearer the tail than the head. The cobra then reared up its body, spread its hood, hissed, and struggled to get free, while my servant held up his hands to avoid the chance of being bitten, and he said that he could see that the afternoon sun was illuminating the interior of its throat ; but he was afraid to let it go, thinking that it would then be more able to bite him. This, however, he is quite positive it never attempted to do, and after some moments of hesitation he jumped to one side, and the snake, so far from offering to bite when liberated, went off in the opposite direction with all speed. lam sure that wild animals perceive quite as readily aa tame ones do the difference between what is purely accidental and what results from malice prepense. The snake must have perceived that its being trodden upon was a pure accident, and as it was not hurt did not bite. A Brahman once told me of a somewhat similar case, when his mother, seeing what she supposed was a kitten in a passage of the house, gave it -a push on one side with her foot. It turned out to be a Cobra, which spread his hood and hissed, but never offered to bite her.

In support of this theory I may mention that in Australia, whereas venomous snakes are constantly found sharing a hole with living rabbits when burrows are dug out, I never heard of one being found in a hole with a dead rabbit. The Australian venomous snaka being small and slender — generally about a yard long, too small to swallow a rabbit, to kill it for food is ont of the question — they do not seem to bite it when it runs over them, aa it must Borflbtimes do when it runs helterskelter into its bole.

The book is very . readably written, and contains some interesting remarks' about caste, one of which will be pretty certain to excite comment : " The effect of caste in helping to prevent the adoption of onr interpretation of Christianity is of incalculable advantage" — which is one of the boldest statements I have seen for some time. — Douglas Sladen, in the Literary World.