MAN AND TIGER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue V, 30 July 1898, Page 159

MAN AND TIGER.

Bidel. the famous lion-tamer, (Missed most of his childhood in a menagerie. Before he was twenty years old he hail become so accustomed to the presence of wild beasts, and had learned so well how to treat them, that he entered their cages as calmly as he would have entered his own room, and seemed to consider their threatening jaws and snarling lips as a smile of welcome.

Early in his career he was at Bayonne with a menagerie. The afternoon entertainment was about to begin, when a terrible ery was raised, ‘Athir has escaped.’ Athir was a young royal tiger, notorious for his savage disposition. It was easy enough to manage him in the menagerie; but at large, tempted bv easy prey, the danger was terrible. Everyone fled, rushing into houses and elimbing trees. ‘T set out to hunt for him.’ says Bidel. ‘For a long time T traced him walking from place to place under the burning sun. Sometone whispered to me from a window, fearing apparently that the tiger would overhear. ‘He is there.” The finger of this hero pointed cautiously to tin iron-worker’s shop, the door of which stood open, T rushed in.

‘lt was black ns night; for ten seconds T could see nothing. Then in a corner, crouched ready to spring, his jaws open, his eyes on fire, I saw the runaway. A second more, and he would have bounded forward, seized and torn me. I was ahead of him; it was 1 who sprang. Then what roaring, what foaming at the mouth, what anger! That hand to hand struggle in the twilight, I breathless, he mad with rage, was short. If it had not been, I should have been lost. ‘I seized him with both hands by the skin of his back, raised him on my back, and under this enormous weight, without stumbling or flagging, I walked with a firm and equal step toward the menagerie. You may imagine how T was congratulated!’