Every day after completing ten or twelve miles of my sketch I halted at a _dâk_ bungalow or pitched my tent. My servants and elephant had usually arrived before me; and I found my breakfast of biscuit, tinned meat and tea, occasionally supplemented by eggs from the nearest village, awaiting me. My orderly, scouting on ahead on my bicycle, had sought for information of sport; and, if the prospects of it were good, I took my gun or rifle and went out in search of something to shoot. But in such well-cultivated country there was very little game.
At one village near which I halted for the night I heard that a man-eating tiger was lurking in the neighbourhood. It had killed two natives on the road within the week. Of course I went out to look for it, but with scant hope of finding it, as I could only stay a day in the place. Mounting my elephant I started after breakfast and beat through all the small patches of jungle for miles round and along the banks of a small stream flowing by the village. But, though I hunted until after dusk, I found no traces of it, and returned disappointed to the _dâk_ bungalow.
As I sat smoking after dinner out in the compound under the stars I heard the tinkle of bells coming along the road and drawing nearer and nearer. Then past the gate of the enclosure around the bungalow a native postman shuffled by at a dog-trot, his spear and bells over his shoulder. I stopped him and asked him if he had heard of the tiger.
The little old man, bent almost double under the weight of his mail-bag, wiped his brow, as he answered:
"Yes, Protector of the Poor, the _shaitan_ (devil) killed two men of this village on this very road by which I come each night."
"Are you not afraid of meeting him?" I asked.
"That is in the hands of God, Sahib. I must earn my pay by carrying the _dâk_ (mail) along that road every day."
"The _dâk_ only reaches my post office after nightfall, and must be sent on at once. _Hukm hai._ It is the order." And with a farewell salaam he trotted off into the darkness and danger of the night; and the tinkle of the bells died away down the fatal road.
Next morning I moved on, deeply regretting that I could not afford the time to remain and make a systematic search for the man-eater. It was tantalising to be in its hunting-ground and yet be unable to stay longer and devote myself to its destruction. To shoot an ordinary tiger is not much of an achievement; but to circumvent and kill a murderous beast, grown daring and wily in the slaughter of human beings, is something to be proud of, and a good and useful deed. The hunter must pit his brains against its cunning and risk his life freely; for the man-eater is acute beyond all others and has lost the wild animals' usual dread of man. It is fortunate that such are rare; for last year tigers killed eight hundred and eighty-five persons in India, one being credited with forty-one deaths. Other wild beasts were far behind in the grim count. Wolves killed two hundred and fifty-five; while panthers slew two hundred and sixty-one human beings. But these figures fall far short of the havoc caused by venomous reptiles. In 1911 over twenty-five thousand persons died from snake-bite; in 1912, twenty-one thousand four hundred and sixty-one deaths were recorded from the same cause. But it must be remembered that in villages far from police investigations and coroners' inquests, snake-bite is a very convenient explanation of a sudden and violent death.