TENT LIFE IN TIGER LAND

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 370, 22 May 1889, Page 3

TENT LIFE IN TIGER LAND

BY The Ho>\ James Inglis, M.L.A.

Under the above title has been published one of the most interesting books issued in the 1888 season ; indeed, the work, in its own department, may fairly bo termed "the book of the year." It is astonishing? how little is really known of the vast peninsula of Hindostan among the great bulk of the people who reside in the mother country ov in any of the scattered divisions of the Empire. No doubt every Englishman has certain vague impressions of India as an integral part of the Empire where choleric members of the Anglo - Saxon race have often accumulated wealth in some mysterious way, and then come 1 home to spend the remnant of their days in such comfort as is attainable by a man who has only a fragment of a liver, and who from long habit requires a temperature somewhere between 90deg. and 120deg. to keep him comfortably warm. Added to these notions are some historical fragments, more or less accurately retained in the mind, / of the English conquest of India, and the* horrors of the mutiny ; but probably not one in a thousand has any rational notion of what the life of a planter in Britain's great Eastern possession actually is, or any true idea of the condition and daily life of the settlers and natives. It was his personal experience of this prevailing ignorance that led Mr Inglis, after a twelve years' residence in India, to write his first work, '• Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier," and the avidity -with which that volume was read has induced him to place us under a further obligation by publishing some additional leaves from his Indian experiences, more especially those which relate to the exciting sport of tiger-hunting in the jungle. " Tent Life in Tiger Land " is even better than the volume that preceded it, in its glowing pictures of Indian life and scenery. The author brings the zeal of an enthusiastic sportsman to bear upon his task ; and his vivid sketches convey to the senses of the absorbed reader the very aroma of the iungle. Some of the stories are of so extraordinary a character that one knows not whether to accept them literally or make a due allowance for the hunter's traditional license when recounting "adventures by flood and field." As our London correspondent well exprassed it when noticing the first appearance of the work in England, the reader "takes the book up with interest, and lays it down with astonishment." Here is a brief extract from a description of a conflict at close quarters with a tiger, — the narrator, who was out on a hunting expedition, with his brother, having forced his way through an almost impenetrable tangle of thicket into the ruins of an ancient village temple, suddenly found himself alono with a tiger : "The gloom and shade were so intense, I could not discern anything inside the temple. At the far end, beyond the indistinctly shaped arches and buttressed projections, I could see something shining like a jewel through the gloom. It sparkled and shone just like a brilliant in a setting of jet ; and not doubting that it might be some tinsel round the mouldering pane in the hidden recess, or perhap3 might even be a real jewel, for such a thing was not at all unlikely, I withdrew my head, and shouted as loud as I could to George to send a fellow with the matches, that I might thoroughly explore the glowing interior of the murky ruin. . . Geoi-ge took such a time that I got impatient I turned again and peered into the dim chamber I was startled Far back in the cavern - like gloomy arch, glittered two lustrous orbs of a baleful greenish hue. Their intensity seemed to wax and wane, as does the sparkle of a diamond as the light strikes on its facets. I was struck dumb with astonishmpnt for the minute. I could hear George rustling noisily through the last opposing barrier of twigs that separated him from me ; my curiousty was now quite aflame. Strange, I felt no compunctious visiting of fear. The presence of my brother seemed to nerve me. The glittering light of the two blazing jewels seemed to expand and scintillate and emit a yet more intense lustre. With a cry to George, ' Come on, George !' I stooped down and entered the close stifling atmosphere — The darkness seemed to swallow me up. strode forth : the bats surged round my head, brushing me with their wings in their wild affright. I was directly under the dome. My hands were held in front of me like a blind man groping in an unknown place, when — with a roar that seemed to shake the very walla and reverbrated through the vaulted apartment, the jewels blazed like a lurid gleam of fire ; a quick convul&ive spasm seized my heart as if a giant hand had seized it and squeezed it like a sponge, and I knew at once that I was face to face, cooped up in this loathsome kennel, caught in a deadly trap,

Alone with a Ma>--eatixg Tiger !" Our space will not permit us to follow the unlucky hunter further through this thrilling experience. Suffice it bo say, that having avoided one spring of the infuriated beast, his brother George managed to make a diversion in his favour, which enabled him to shoot his terrible antagonist. The author one night witnessed a terrific combat between a big Bengal boar and a young tiger which shows what a formidable customer the Indian wild boar is to tackle : " Crouching now still lower till he seemed almost flat on the ground, and gathering up hit* sinewy limbs beneath his lithe, lean body, the tiger suddenly startled the stillness with loud roar, and quick as lightning sprang upon the boar. For a brief minute the struggle was thrilling in its iqtense excitement. With one swift, dextrous sweep of the strong ready paw, the tiger fetched the boar a terrific slap right across the jaw, which made the sbrong beast reel ; but with a hoarse grunt of resolute defiance, with two or three short, sharp digs of the strong head and neck, and swift cutting blows of the cruel gashing tusks, he seemed to make a hole or two in the tiger's coat, marking it with more stripes than nature had ever painted there ; and presently both combatants were streaming with gore. This was round number one. The tiger had evidently got more than he bargained for. Betting at present very even. The tremendous buffet of the sharp claws had torn flesh and skin away from off the boar's cheek and iorehead, leaving a great ugly flap hanging over his face and half blinding him. But Master Stripes had not como off scatheless. There were two or three ugly rips in his chest and neck, from which copious streams were flowing ; and there was a troubled indecision about the sweep of his long tail which betokened a mind ill at ease, and seemed to say * I wish I were well out of this.' The pig was now on his mettle. W ibh another hoarse grunt, he made straight for the tiger, who very dextrously eluded the charge, and lithe and quick as a cat after a mouse, doubled almost on itself, and alighted clean on the boar's back, inserting his* teeth above the shoulders, tearing with his claws and biting out great mouthfuls of flesh from the quivering carcase of his maddened antagonist. He seemed now to

be having all the bast of it. So much so that the boar discreetly stumbled and fell forwai'd, whether by accident or design I know not, but the effect was to bring the tiger cloan over his bead, sprawling clumsily on the ground. I almost shouted ' Aha, now you have him !' for the tables were turned. Eound number two. Getting his fore feet on the tiger's prostrabeearcase, the boar now gave two or three short ripping gashes with the strong white tusks, almost disembowelling his foe, and then, exhausted seemingly by the eflort, apparently giddy and sick, he staggered aside and lay down panting and champing his tusks, bub still defiant, with his head to the foe. This was round number thx'ee. But the tiger, too, was sick — yea, sick unto death. The blood-letting had been too much fDr him. And now, thinking that it was time for the interference of a third party, I let the two mutually disabled combatants have the contents of both my barrels, and wo had the satisfaction presently of seeing the struggling limbs grow still, and knew that both were ours." The author had many opportunities of observing the daily life of the Hindoo? and of forming a true estimate of the value of their civilisation. Unlike many AngloIndians, he is not a scoffer at missionary effort, nor prone to gush over the alleged elevating: influence of the Hindoophilosophy which is being attacked by the apostles of Christianity. Here is a passage that presents us with a true picture of Oriental heathendom : — " The dark clouds of superstition, ignorance, and horrid cruolty still obscure the light and battle with tho dawn. Wore I to detail some of the scenes of awful cruelty and heathenish horror that have come under my own observation, I would not be believed. I have seen poor mutilated women often in the Ncpaul villages terribly scarred and disfigured, simply from a jealous outburst of devilish ' rage on the part of a brutal husband. I have known of many cases of infanticide — fair infants cruelly done bo death at the bidding of a fiendish heathen custom. Further on I may detail some of the inhuman cruelties practised by the police and the torturings by petty officials. In these dark regions, the most direful tragedies are enacted even under the name of religion. At the present day, even while I write, witches are being stoned and beaten in hundreds of villages ; offerings are being made to demons ; and abominations are being perpetrated before the very conception of which the soul shudders and the' heart turns sick — mostly, it is true, in native States and remote parts of the country where English officials are rarely seen. And yet we have men who go into ecstacies over the purity and intellectual culture of the Hindoo faith, and also sneer at the religion of Jesus and the efforts of Christian men to dissipate tho darkness. There is nothing so easy in this world as to sneer A sneer is the devil's favourite weapon. Men who sneer at all missionary effort are generally men who are utterly incapable of comprehending the missionary spirit. God knows, much missionary effort is misdirected, much zeal is frittered away, and much cause is given to the enemy to rejoice ; butevoryone who has seen the patient, self-denying lives of the true Christian missionaries as I have ofttimes seen them, cannot but feel that in the vital religion of these men — the religion of love — the gospel message of peace and pardon from God to man — lies the only lever that will raise the sunken, degraded humanity of tfce heathen, and place it again on a level with the image of the Divine natuie in which it wa3 created." In the present issue, the author has combined his '* Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier" with "Tent Life in Tiger Land." The two works make up a very handsome volume of nearly 700 pages, embellished with 25 coloured plates, which add very considerably to the attraction of the book. The work is one that will undoubtedly be very widely read, and will give those who dip into its pages a very vivid picture of Oriental life. Ths publishers are A. Hutchison and Son, of Sydney and Brisbane. Mr Wildman, bookseller, of Shortlandsbreet, is the Auckland agent.