THE CHOWGARH TIGERS

THE map of Eastern Kumaon that hangs on the wall before
me is marked with a number of crosses, and below each
cross is a date. These crosses indicate the locality, and the
date, of the officially recorded human victims of the man-eating
tiger of Chowgarh. There are sixty-four crosses on the map.
I do not claim this as being a correct tally, for the map was
posted up by me for two years and during this period all kills
were not reported to me; further, victims who were only
mauled, and who died subsequently, have not been awarded a
cross and a date.

The first cross is dated 15 December 1925, and the last,
21 March 1930. The distance between the extreme crosses,
north to south, is fifty miles, and east to west, thirty miles, an
area of 1,500 square miles of mountain and vale where the snow
lies deep during winter, and the valleys are scorching hot in
summer. Over this area the Chowgarh tiger had established
a reign of terror. Villages of varying size, some with a popula-
tion of a hundred or more, and others with only a small family
or two, are scattered throughout the area. Footpaths, beaten
hard by bare feet, connect the villages. Some of these paths
pass through thick forests, and when a man-eater renders their
passage dangerous inter-village communication is carried on by
shouting. Standing on a commanding point, maybe a big rock
or the roof of a house, a man cooees to attract the attention
of the people in a neighbouring village, and when the cooee is
answered, the message is shouted across in a high-pitched voice.
From village to village the message is tossed, and is broadcast
throughout large areas in an incredibly short space of time.

It was at a District Conference in February 1929 that I found
myself committed to have a try for this tiger. There were at
that time three man-eaters in the Kumaon Division, and as the

HUMAN BEINGS KILLED
BY THE CHOWGARH MAN-EATER

Village Number

THALI

1

DEBGURA

1

BARHON

2

CHAMOLI ......

6

KAHOR

1

AM

2

DALKANIA

7

LOHAR ......

8

AGHAURA

2

PAHARPANI

1

PADAMPURI

2

TANDA ......

1

NESORIYA

1

JHANGAON ......

1

KABRAGAON

1

KALA AGAR ......

8

RIKHAKOT

i

MATELA

3

KUNDAL ......

3

BABYAR ......

i

KHANSIUN

i

GARGARI

i

HAIRAKHAN .....

2

UKHALDHUNGA

1

PAKHARI ......

1

DUNGARI

2

GALNI

3

TOTAL -

64

ANNUAL TOTALS

1926 15 KILLED

1927 9 KILLED

1928 14 KILLED

1929 17 KILLED

1930 9 KILLED

TOTAL 64

The Chowgarh Tigers 43.

Chowgarh tiger had done most damage I promised to go in
pursuit of it first.

The map with the crosses and dates, furnished to me by
Government, showed that the man-eater was most active in the
villages on the north and east face of the Kala Agar ridge. This
ridge, some forty miles in length, rises to a height of 8,500 feet
and is thickly wooded along the crest. A forest road runs along
the north face of the ridge, in some places passing for miles
through dense forests of oak and rhododendron, and in others
forming a boundary between the forest and cultivated land.
In one place the road forms a loop, and in this loop is situated
the Kala Agar Forest Bungalow. This bungalow was my
objective, and after a four days' march, culminating in a stiff
climb of 4,000 feet, I arrived at it one evening in April 1929.
The last human victim in this area was a young man of twenty-
two, who had been killed while out grazing cattle, and while
I was having breakfast, the morning after my arrival, the grand-
mother of the young man came to see me.

She informed me that the man-eater had, without any pro-
vocation, killed the only relative she had in the world. After
giving me her grandson's history from the day he was born,
and extolling his virtues, she pressed me to accept her three
milch buffaloes to use as bait for the tiger, saying that if I
killed the tiger with the help of her buffaloes she would have
the satisfaction of feeling that she had assisted in avenging her
grandson. These full-grown animals were of no use to me,
but knowing that refusal to accept them would give offence, I
thanked the old lady and assured her I would draw on her
for bait as soon as I had used up the four young male buffaloes
I had brought with me from Naini Tal. The Headmen of
nearby villages had now assembled, and from them I learned
that the tiger had last been seen ten days previously in a village
twenty miles away, on the eastern slope of the ridge, where
it had killed and eaten a man and his wife.

44 Man-eaters of Kumaon

A trail ten days old was not worth following up, and after
a long discussion with the Headmen I decided to make for
Dalkania village on the eastern side of the ridge. Dalkania
is ten miles from Kala Agar, and about the same distance from
the village where the man and his wife had been killed.

From the number of crosses Dalkania and the villages adjoin-
ing it had earned, it appeared that the tiger had its headquarters
in the vicinity of these villages.

After breakfast next morning I left Kala Agar and followed
the forest road, which I was informed would take me to the
end of the ridge, where I should have to leave the road and take
a path two miles downhill to Dalkania. This road, running
right to the end of the ridge through dense forest was very
little used, and, examining it for tracks as I went along, I
arrived at the point where the path took off at about 2 p.m.
Here I met a number of men from Dalkania. They had heard
via the cooee method of communication of my intention of
camping at their village and had come up to the ridge to inform
me that the tiger had that morning attacked a party of women,
while they had been cutting their crops in a village ten miles
to the north of Dalkania.

The men carrying my camp equipment had done eight miles
and were quite willing to carry on, but on learning from the
villagers that the path to this village, ten miles away, was very
rough and ran through dense forest I decided to send my men
with the villagers to Dalkania, and visit the scene of the tiger's
attack alone. My servant immediately set about preparing a
substantial meal for me, and at 3 p.m., having fortified myself,
I set out on my ten-mile walk. Ten miles under favourable
conditions is a comfortable two-and-a-half hours 1 walk, but here
the conditions were anything but favourable. The track run-
ning along the east face of the hill wound in and out through
deep ravines and was bordered alternately by rocks, dense
undergrowth, and trees; and when every obstruction capable of

The Chowgarh Tigers 45

concealing sudden death, in the form of a hungry man-eater,
had to be approached with caution, progress was of necessity
slow. I was still several miles from my objective when the
declining day warned me it was time to call a halt.

In any other area, sleeping under the stars on a bed of dry
leaves would have ensured a restful night, but here, to sleep
on the ground would have been to court death in a very un-
pleasant form. Long practice in selecting a suitable tree, and
the ability to dispose myself comfortably in it, has made sleep-
ing up aloft a simple matter. On this occasion I selected an
oak tree, and, with the rifle tied securely to a branch, had been
asleep for some hours when I was awakened by the rustling of
several animals under the tree. The sound moved on, and
presently I heard the scraping of claws on bark and realized
that a family of bears were climbing sofne karphal L trees I had
noticed growing a little way down the hillside. Bears are very
quarrelsome when feeding, and sleep was impossible until they
had eaten their fill and moved on.

The sun had been up a couple of hours when I arrived at
the village, which consisted of two huts and a cattle-shed, in a
clearing of five acres surrounded by forest. The small com-
munity were in a state of terror and were overjoyed to see me.
The wheatfield, a few yards from the huts, where the tiger,
with belly to ground, had been detected only just in time,
stalking the three women cutting the crop, was eagerly pointed
out to me. The man who had seen the tiger, and given the
alarm, told me the tiger had retreated into the jungle, where
it had been joined by a second tiger, and that the two animals
had gone down the hillside into the valley below. The occupants
of the two huts had had no sleep, for the tigers, baulked of their

1 Karphal is found on our hills at an elevation of 6,000 feet. The
tree grows to a height of about forty feet and produces a small red and
very sweet berry, which is greatly fancied by both human beings and
bears.

46 Man-eaters of Kumaon

prey, had called at short intervals throughout the night, and had
only ceased calling a little before my arrival. This statement, that
there were two tigers, confirmed the reports I had already re-
ceived that the man-eater was accompanied by a full-grown cub.

Our hill folk are very hospitable, and when the villagers
learned that I had spent the night in the jungle, and that my
camp was at Dalkania, they offered to prepare a meal for me.
This I knew would strain the resources of the small community,
so I asked for a dish of tea, but as there was no tea in the
village I was given a drink of fresh milk sweetened to excess
with jaggery, a very satisfying and not unpleasant drink when
one gets used to it. At the request of my hosts I mounted
guard while the remaining portion of the wheat crop was cut;
and at midday, taking the good wishes of the people with me,
I went down into the valley in the direction in which the tigers
had been heard calling.

The valley, starting from the watershed of the three rivers
Ladhya, Nandhour and Eastern Goula, runs south-west for
twenty miles and is densely wooded. Tracking was impossible,
and my only hope of seeing the tigers was to attract them to
myself, or helped by the jungle folk to stalk them.

To those of you who may be inclined to indulge in the
sport of man-eater hunting on foot, it will be of interest to
know that the birds and animals of the jungle, and the four
winds of heaven, play a very important part in this form of
sport. This is not the place to give the names of the jungle
folk on whose alarm-calls the sportsman depends, to a great
extent, for his safety and knowledge of his quarry's movements;
for in a country in which a walk up or down hill of three or
four miles might mean a difference in altitude of as many
thousand feet the variation in fauna, in a well-stocked area, is
considerable. The wind, however, at all altitudes, remains a con-
stant factor, and a few words relevant to its importance in con-
nexion with man-eater hunting on foot will not be out of place.

The Chowgarh Tigers 47

Tigers do not know that human beings have no sense of
smell, and when a tiger becomes a man-eater it treats human
beings exactly as it treats wild animals, that is, it approaches
its intended victims up-wind, or lies up in wait for them
down-wind.

The significance of this will be apparent when it is realized
that, while the sportsman is trying to get a sight of the tiger,
the tiger in all probability is trying to stalk the sportsman, or
is lying up in wait for him. The contest, owing to the tiger's
height, colouring, and ability to move without making a sound,
would be very unequal were it not for the wind-factor operating
in favour of the sportsman.

In all cases where killing is done by stalking or stealth, the
victim is approached from behind. This being so, it would be
suicidal for the sportsman to enter dense jungle, in which he
had every reason to believe a man-eater was lurking, unless he
was capable of making full use of the currents of air. For
example, assuming that the sportsman has to proceed, owing
to th$ nature of the ground, in the direction from which the
wind IB blowing, the danger would lie behind him, where he
would be least able to deal with it, but by frequently tacking
across the wind he could keep the danger alternately to right
and left of him. In print this scheme may not appear very
attractive, but in practice it works; and, short of walking back-
wards, I do not know of a better or safer method of going
up-wind through dense cover in which a hungry man-eater is
lurking.

By evening I had reached the upper end of the valley, with-
out having seen the tigers and without having received any
indication from bird or animal of their presence in the jungle.
The only habitation then in sight was a cattle-shed, high up on
the north side of the valley.

I was careful in the selection of a tree on this second night,
and was rewarded by an undisturbed night's rest. Not long

48 Man-eaters of Kumaon

after dark the tigers called, and a few minutes later two shots
from a muzzle-loader came echoing down the valley, followed
by a lot of shouting from the graziers at the cattle station.
Thereafter the night was silent.

By the afternoon of the following day I had exploded every
bit of the valley, and I was making my way up a grassy slope
intent on rejoining my men at Dalkania when I heard a long-
drawn-out cooee from the direction of the cattle-shed. The
cooee was repeated once and again, and on my sending back
an answering call I saw a man climb on a projecting rock, and
from this vantage point he shouted across the valley to ask if
I was the sahib who had come from Naini Tal to shoot the
man-eater. On my telling him I was that sahib, he informed
me that his cattle had stampeded out of a ravine on my side
of the valley at about midday, and that when he counted them
on arrival at the cattle station he found that one a white cow
was missing.

He suspected that the cow had been killed by the tigers he
had heard calling the previous night, half a mile to the west
of where I was standing. Thanking him for his information, I
set off to investigate the ravine. I had gone but a short distance
along the edge of the ravine when I came on the tracks of the
stampeding cattle, and following these tracks back I had no diffi-
culty in finding the spot where the cow had been killed. After
killing the cow the tigers had taken it down the steep hillside
into the ravine. An approach along the drag was not advisable,
so going down into the valley I made a wide detour, and
approached the spot where I expected the kill to be from the
other side of the ravine. This side of the ravine was less steep
than the side down which the kill had been taken, and was deep
in young bracken ideal ground for stalking over. Step by step,
shadow, I made my way through the

Bracken, which reached above my waist, and when I was some
thirty yards from the bed of the ravine a movement in front of

The Chowgarh Tigers 49

me caught my eye. A white leg was suddenly thrust up into the
air and violently agitated, and next moment there was a deep-
throated growl the tigers were on the kill and tfere having a
difference of opinion over some toothful morsel.

For several minutes I stood perfectly still; the leg continued
to be agitated, but the growl was not repeated. A nearer
approach was not advisable, for even if I succeeded in covering
the thirty yards without being seen, and managed to kill one
of the tigers, the other, as likely as not, would blunder into me,
and the ground I was on would give me no chance of defending
myself. Twenty yards to my left front, and about the same
distance from the tigers, there was an outcrop of rock, some
ten to fifteen feet high. If I could reach this rock without
being seen, I should in all probability get an easy shot at the
tigers. Dropping on hands and knees, and pushing the rifle
before me, I crawled through the bracken to the shelter of the
rocks, paused a minute to regain my breath and make quite
sure the rifle was loaded, and then climbed the rock. When
my eyes were level with the top, I looked over, and saw the
two tigers.

One was eating at the hind quarters of the cow, while the
other was lying near by licking its paws. Both tigers appeared
to be about the same size, but the one that was licking its paws
was several shades lighter than the other; and concluding that
her light colouring was due to age and that she was the old
man-eater, I aligned the sights very carefully on her, and fired.
At my shot she reared up and fell backwards, while the other
bounded down the ravine and was out of sight before I could
press the second trigger. The tiger I had shot did not move
again, and after pelting it with stones to make sure it was dead,
I approached and met with a great disappointment; for a glance
at close quarters showed me I had made a mistake and shot the
cub a mistake that during the ensuing twelve months cost the
district fifteen lives and incidentally nearly cost me my own life.

5

50 Man-eaters of Kumaon

Disappointment was to a certain extent mitigated by the
thought that this young tigress, even if she had not actually
killed any human beings herself, had probably assisted her old
mother to kill (this assumption I later found to be correct),
and in any case, having been nurtured on human fltsh, she
could to salve my feelings be classed as a potential man-
eater.

Skinning a tiger with assistance on open ground and with
the requisite appliances is an easy job, but here the job was
anything but easy, for I was alone, surrounded by thick cover,
and my only appliance was a penknife; and though there was
no actual danger to be apprehended from the man-eater, for
tigers never kill in excess of their requirements, there was the
uneasy feeling in the back of my mind that the tigress had
returned and was watching my every movement.

The sun was near setting before the arduous task was
completed, and as I should have to spend yet another night
in the jungles I decided to remain where I was. The tigress
was a very old animal, as I could see from her pug marks, and
having lived all her life in a district in which there are nearly
as many fire-arms as men to use them, had nothing to learn
about men and their ways. Even so, there was just a chance
that she might return to the kill some time during the
night, and remain in the vicinity until light came in the
morning.

My selection of a tree was of necessity limited, and the one
I spent that night in proved, by morning, to be the most un-
comfortable tree I have ever spent twelve hours in. The tigress
called at intervals throughout the night, and as morning drew
near the calling became fainter and fainter, and eventually died
away on the ridge above me.

Cramped, and stiff, and hungry I had been without food
for sixty-four hours and with my clothes clinging to me it
had rained for an hour during the night I descended from the

The Chowgarh Tigers 51

tree when objects were clearly visible, and, after tying the
tiger's skin up in a coat, set off for Dalkania.

I have never weighed a tiger's skin when green, and if the
skin, plus the head and paws, which I carried for fifteen miles
that day weighed 40 pounds at the start, I would have taken my
oath it weighed 200 pounds before I reached my destination.

In a courtyard, flagged with great slabs of blue slate, and
common to a dozen houses, I found my men in conference with
a hundred or more villagers. My approach, along a yard- wide
lane between two houses, had not been observed, and the wel-
come I received when, bedraggled and covered with blood, I
staggered into the circle of squatting men will live in my
memory as long as memory lasts.

My 40-lb. tent had been pitched in a field of stubble a
hundred yards from the village, and I had hardly reached it
before tea was laid out for me on a table improvised out of a
couple of suitcases and planks borrowed from the village. I
was told later by the villagers that my men, who had been
with me for years and had accompanied me on several similar
expeditions, refusing to believe that the man-eater had claimed
me as a victim, had kept a kettle on the boil night and day
in anticipation of my return, and, further, had stoutly opposed
the Headmen of Dalkania and the adjoining villages sending a
report to Almora and Naini Tal that I was missing.

A hot bath, taken of necessity in the open and in full view
of the village I was too dirty and too tired to care who saw
me was followed by an ample dinner, and I was thinking of
turning in for the night when a flash of lightning succeeded
by a loud peal of thunder heralded the approach of a storm.
Tent-pegs are of little use in a field, so long stakes were hurried-
ly procured and securely driven into the ground, and to these
stakes the tent-ropes were tied. For further safety all the avail-
able ropes in camp were criss-crossed over the tent and lashed to
the stakes. The storm of wind and rain lasted an hour and was

52 Man-eaters of Kumaon

one of the worst the little tent had ever weathered. Several of
the guy-ropes were torn from the canvas, but the stakes and
criss-cross ropes held. Most of my things were soaked through,
and a little stream several inches deep was running from end to
end of the tent; my bed, however, was comparatively dry, and
by 10 o'clock my men were safely lodged behind locked doors
in the house the villagers had placed at their disposal, while I,
with a loaded rifle for company, settled down to a sleep which
lasted for twelve hours.

The following day was occupied in drying my kit and in
cleaning and pegging out the tiger's skin. While these opera-
tions were in progress the villagers, who had taken a holiday
from their field work, crowded round to hear my experiences
and to tell me theirs. Every man present had lost one or more
relatives, and several bore tooth and claw marks, inflicted by
the man-eater, which they will carry to their graves. My regret
at having lost an opportunity of killing the man-eater was not
endorsed by the assembled men. True, there had originally
been only one man-eater; but, of recent months, rescue parties
who had gone out to recover the remains of human victims had
found two tigers on the kills, and only a fortnight previously
a man and his wife had been killed simultaneously, which was
proof sufficient for them that both tigers were established man-
eaters.

My tent was on a spur of the hill, and commanded an
extensive view. Immediately below me was the valley of the
Nandhour river, with a hill, devoid of any cultivation, rising
to a height of 9,000 feet on the far side. As I sat on the edge
of the terraced fields that evening with a pair of good bino-
culars in my hand and the Government map spread out beside
me, the villagers pointed out the exact positions where twenty
human beings had been killed during the past three years.
These kills were more or less evenly distributed over an area of
forty square miles.

The Chowgarh Tigers 53

The forests in this area were open to grazing, and on the
cattle-paths leading to them I decided to tie up my four young
buffaloes.

During the following ten days no news was received of the
tigress, and I spent the time in visiting the buffaloes in the
morning, searching the forests in the day, and tying out the
buffaloes in the evening. On the eleventh day my hopes were
raised by the report that a cow had been killed on a ravine on
the hill above my tent. A visit to the kill, however, satisfied
me the cow had been killed by an old leopard, whose pug marks
I had repeatedly seen. The villagers complained that the leo-
pard had for several years been taking heavy toll of their cattle
and goats, so I decided to sit up for him. A shallow cave close
to the dead cow gave me the cover I needed. I had not been
long in the cave when I caught sight of the leopard coming
down the opposite side of the ravine, and I was raising my rifle
for a shot when I heard a very agitated voice from the direction
of the village calling to me.

There could be but one reason for this urgent call, and
grabbing up my hat I dashed out of the cave, much to the
consternation of the leopard, who first flattened himself out
on the ground, and then with an angry woof went bounding
back the way he had come, while I scrambled up my side of
the ravine; and, arriving at the top, shouted to the man that
I was coming, and set off at top speed to join him.

The man had run all the way uphill from the village, and
when he regained his breath he informed me that a woman
had just been killed by the man-eater, about half a mile on the
far side of the village. As we ran down the hillside I saw a
crowd of people collected in the courtyard already alluded to.
Once again my approach through the narrow lane was not
observed, and looking over the heads of the assembled men, I
saw a girl sitting on the ground.

The upper part of her clothing had been torn off her young

54 Man-eaters of Kumaon

body, and with head thrown back and hands resting on the
ground behind to support her, she sat without sound or move-
ment, other than the heaving up and down of her breast, in
the hollow of which the blood, that was flowing down her face
and neck, was collecting in a sticky congealed mass.

My presence was soon detected and a way made for me
to approach the girl. While I was examining her wounds, a
score of people, all talking at the same time, informed me
that the attack on the girl had been made on comparatively
open ground in full view of a number of people including the
girl's husband; that alarmed at their combined shouts the tiger
had left the girl and gone off in the direction of the forest; that
leaving the girl for dead where she had fallen her companions
had run back to the village to inform me; that subsequently
the girl had regained consciousness and returned to the village;
that she would without doubt die of her injuries in a few
minutes; and that they would then carry her back to the scene
of the attack, and I could sit up over the corpse and shoot
the tiger.

While this information was being imparted to me the girl's
eyes never left my face and followed my every movement with
the liquid pleading gaze of a wounded and frightened animal.
Room to move unhampered, quiet to collect my wits, and clean
air for the girl to breathe were necessary, and I am afraid the
methods I employed to gain them were not as gentle as they
might have been. When the last of the men had left in a
hurry, I set the women, who up to now had remained in the
background, to winning water and to tearing my shirt, which
was comparatively clean and dry, into bandages, while one girl,
who appeared to be on the point of getting hysterics, was bund-
led off to scour the village for a pair of scissors. The water and
bandages were ready before the girl I had sent for the scissors
returned with the only pair, she said, the village could produce.
They had been found in the house of a tailor, long since dead,

The Chowgarh Tigers 55

and had been used by the widow for digging up potatoes. The
rusty blades, some eight inches long, could not be made to meet
at any point, and after a vain attempt I decided to leave the
thick coils of blood-caked hair alone.

The major wounds consisted of two claw cuts, one starting
between the eyes and extending right over the head and down
to the nape of the neck, leaving the scalp hanging in two halves,
and the other, starting near the first, running across the fore-
head up to the right ear. In addition to these ugly gaping
wounds there were a number of deep scratches on the right
breast, right shoulder and neck, and one deep cut on the back
of the right hand, evidently inflicted when the girl had put up
her hand in a vain attempt to shield her head.

A doctor friend whom I had once taken out tiger-shooting
on foot had, on our return after an exciting morning, presented
me with a two-ounce bottle of yellow fluid which he advised
me to carry whenever I went out shooting. I had carried the
bottle in the inner pocket of my shooting jacket for over a
year and a portion of the fluid had evaporated; but the bottle
was still three-parts full, and after I had washed the girl's
head and body I knocked the neck off the bottle and poured
the contents, to the last drop, into the wounds. This done I
bandaged the head, to try to keep the scalp in position, and
then picked up the girl and carried her to her home a single
room combining living quarters, kitchen and nursery with the
women following behind.

Dependent from a rafter near the door was an open basket,
the occupant of which was now clamouring to be fed. This
was a complication with which I could not deal, so I left the
solution of it to the assembled women. Ten days later, when
on the eve of my departure I visited the girl for the last time,
I found her sitting on the doorstep of her home with the baby
asleep in her lap.

Her wounds, except for a sore at the nape of her neck where

56 Man-eaters of Kumaon

the tiger's claws had sunk deepest into the flesh, were all healed,
and when parting her great wealth of raven-black hair to show
me where the scalp had made a perfect join, she said, with a
smile, that she was very glad her young sister had quite by
mistake borrowed the wrong pair of scissors from the tailor's
widow (for a shorn head here is the sign of widowhood). If
these lines should ever be read by my friend the doctor I
should like him to know that the little bottle of yellow fluid he
so thoughtfully provided for me, saved the life of a very brave
young mother.

While I had been attending to the girl my men had procured
a goat. Following back the blood trail made by the girl I found
the spot where the attack had taken place, and tying the goat
to a bush I climbed into a stunted oak, the only tree in the
vicinity, and prepared for an all-night vigil. Sleep, even in
snatches, was not possible, for my seat was only a few feet from
the ground, and the tigress was still without her dinner. How-
ever, I neither saw nor heard anything throughout the night.

On examining the ground in the morning I had not had
time to do this the previous evening I found that the tigress,
after attacking the girl, had gone up the valley for half a mile
to where a cattle track crossed the Nandhour river. This track
it had followed for two miles, to its junction with the forest
road on the ridge above Dalkania. Here on the hard ground
I lost the tracks.

For two days the people in all the surrounding villages kept
as close to their habitations as the want of sanitary conveniences
permitted, and then on the third day news was brought to me
by four runners that the man-eater had claimed a victim at
Lohali, a village five miles to the south of Dalkania. The run-
ners stated that the distance by the forest road was ten miles,
but only five by a short cut by which they proposed taking me
back. My preparations were soon made, and a little after mid-
day I set off with my four guides.

The Chowgarh Tigers 57

A very stiff climb of two miles brought us to the crest of
the long ridge south of Dalkania and in view of the valley three
miles below, where the ' kill ' was reported to have taken place.
My guides could give me no particulars. They lived in a small
village a mile on the near side of Lohali, and at 10 a.m. a mes-
sage had come to them in the manner already described that
a woman of Lohali had been killed by the man-eater, and they
were instructed to convey this information to me at Dalkania.

The top of the hill on which we were standing was bare
of trees, and, while I regained my breath and had a smoke, my
companions pointed out the landmarks. Close to where we were
resting, and under the shelter of a great rock, there was a
small ruined hut, with a circular thorn enclosure near by. Ques-
tioned about this hut, the men told me the following story.
Four years previously a Bhutia (a mari from across the border) ,
who had all the winter been sending packages of gur, salt, and
other commodities from the bazaars at the foothills into the
interior of the district, had built the hut with the object of
resting and fattening his flock of goats through the summer
and rains, and getting them fit for the next winter's work.
After a few weeks the goats wandered down the hill and
damaged my informants' crops, and when they came up to
lodge a protest, they found the hut empty, and the fierce sheep-
dog these men invariably keep with them, to guard their camps
at night, chained to an iron stake and dead. Foul play was
suspected, and next day men were collected from adjoining
villages and a search organized. Pointing to an oak tree scored
by lightning and distant some four hundred yards, my infor-
mants said that under it the remains of the man his skull and
a few splinters of bone and his clothes had been found. This
was the Chowgarh man-eater's first human victim.

There was no way of descending the precipitous hill from
where we were sitting, and the men informed me we should
have to proceed half a mile along the ridge to where we should

58 Man-eaters of Kumaon

find a very steep and rough track which would take us straight
down, past their village, to Lohali, which we could see in the
valley below. We had covered about half the distance we had
to go along the ridge, when all at once, and without being able
to ascribe any reason for it, I felt we were being followed.
Arguing with myself against this feeling was of no avail; there
was only one man-eater in all this area and she had procured
a kill three miles away which she was not likely to leave.
However, the uneasy feeling persisted, and as we were now at
the widest part of the grassy ridge I made the men sit down,
instructing them not to move until I returned, and myself set
out on a tour of investigation. Retracing my steps to where
we had first come out on the ridge I entered the jungle, and
carefully worked round the open ground and back to where
the men were sitting. N.o alarm-call of animal or bird indicated
that a tiger was anywhere in the vicinity, but from there on I
made the four men walk in front of me, while I brought up
the rear, with thumb on safety-catch and a constant lookout
behind.

When we arrived at the little village my companions had
started from, they asked for permission to leave me. I was very
glad of this request, for I had a mile of dense scrub jungle to
go through, and though the feeling that I was being followed
had long since left me, I felt safer and more comfortable with
only my own life to guard. A little below the outlying terraced
fields, and where the dense scrub started, there was a crystal-
clear spring of water, from which the village drew its water-
supply. Here in the soft wet ground I found the fresh pug
marks of the man-eater.

These pug marks, coming from the direction of the village
I was making for, coupled with the uneasy feeling I had ex-
perienced on the ridge above, convinced me that something had
gone wrong with the ' kill ' and that my quest would be fruitless.
As I emerged from the scrub jungle I came in view of Lohali,

The Chowgarh Tigers 59

which consisted of five or six small houses. Near the door of
one of these houses a group of people were collected.

My approach over the steep open ground and narrow terraced
fields was observed, and a few men detached themselves from
the group nekr the door and advanced to meet me. One of the
number, an old man, bent down to- touch my feet, and with
tears streaming down his cheeks implored me to save the life
of his daughter. His story was as short as it was tragic. His
daughter, who was a widow and the only relative he had in the
world, had gone out at about ten o'clock to collect dry sticks
with which to cook their midday meal. A small stream flows
through the valley, and on the far side of the stream from the
village the hill goes steeply up. On the lower slope of this hill
there are a few terraced fields. At the edge of the lowest field,
and distant about 150 yards from the home, the woman had
started to collect sticks. A little later, some women who were
washing their clothes in the stream heard a scream, and on
looking up saw the woman and a tiger disappearing together
into the dense thorn bushes, which extended from the edge of
the field right down to the stream. Dashing back to the village,
the women raised an alarm. The frightened villagers made no
attempt at a rescue, and a message for help was shouted to a
village higher up the valley, from where it was tossed back to
the village from which the four men had set out to find me.
Half an hour after the message had been sent, the wounded
woman crawled home. Her story was that she had seen the
tiger just as it was about to spring on her, and as there was no
time to run, she had jumped down the almost perpendicular
hillside and while she was in the air the tiger had caught her
and they had gone down the hill together. She remembered
nothing further until she regained consciousness and found her-
self near the stream; and being unable to call for help, she had
crawled back to the village on her hands and knees.

We had reached the door of the house while this tale was

60 Man-eaters of Kumabn

being told. Making the people stand back from the door
the only opening in the four walls of the room I drew the
blood-stained sheet off the woman, whose pitiful condition I
am not going to attempt to describe. Had I been a qualified
doctor, armed with modern appliances, instead of just a mere
man with a little permanganate of potash in his pocket, I do not
think it would have been possible to have saved the woman's
life; for the deep tooth and claw wounds in her face, neck, and
other parts of her body had, in that hot unventilated room,
already turned septic. Mercifully she was only semi-conscious.
The old father had followed me into the room, and, more for
his satisfaction than for any good I thought it would do, I
washed the caked blood from the woman's head and body, and
cleaned out the wounds as best I could with my handkerchief
and a strong solution of permanganate.

It was now too late to think of returning to my camp, and
a place would have to be found in which to pass the night.
A little way up the stream, and not far from where the women
had been washing their clothes, there was a giant pipal tree,
with a foot-high masonry platfrom round it used by the villagers
for religious ceremonies.

I undressed on the platform and bathed in the stream; and
when the wind had carried out the functions of a towel, dressed
again, put my back to the tree and, laying the loaded rifle by
my side, prepared to see the night out. Admittedly it was an
unsuitable place in which to spend the night, but any place was
preferable to the village, and that dark room, with its hot fetid
atmosphere and swarm of buzzing flies, where a woman in
torment fought desperately for breath.

During the night the wailing of women announced that the suf-
ferer's troubles were over, and when I passed through the village
at day break preparations for the funeral were well advanced.

From the experience of this unfortunate woman, and that
of the girl at Dalkania, it was now evident that the old tigress

The Chowgarh Tigers 61

had depended, to a very great extent, on her cub to kill the
human beings she attacked. Usually only one out of every
hundred people attacked by man-eating tigers escapes, but in
the case of this man-eater it was apparent that more people
would be mauled than killed outright, and as the nearest hospi-
tal was fifty miles away, when I returned to Naini Tal I
appealed to Government to send a supply of disinfectants and
dressings to all the Headmen of villages in the area in which
the man-eater was operating. On my subsequent visit I was
glad to learn that the request had been complied with, and that
the disinfectants had saved the lives of a number of people.

I stayed at Dalkania for another week and announced on
a Saturday that I would leave for home the following Monday.
I had now been in the man-eater's domain for close on a month,
and the constant strain of sleeping in- an open tent, and of
walking endless miles during the day with the prospect of
every step being the last, was beginning to tell on my nerves.
The villagers received my announcement with consternation,
and only desisted from trying to make me change my decision
when I promised them I would return at the first opportunity.

After breakfast on Sunday morning the Headmen of Dalkania
paid me a visit and requested me to shoot them some game
before I left. The request was gladly acceded to, and half an
hour later, accompanied by four villagers and one of my own
men, and armed with a .275 rifle and a clip of cartridges, I
set off for the hill on the far side of the Nandhour river, on the
upper slopes of which I had, from my camp, frequently seen
ghooral feeding.

One of the villagers accompanying me was a tall gaunt man
with a terribly disfigured face. He had been a constant visitor to
my camp, and finding in me a good listener had told and retold
his encounter with the man-eater so often that I could, without
effort, repeat the whole story in my sleep. The encounter had ta-
ken place four years previously and is best told in his own words.

62 Man-eaters of Kumbon

' Do you see that pine tree, sahib, at the bottom of the grassy
slope on the shoulder of the hill? Yes, the pine tree with a
big white rock to the east of it. Well, it was at the upper edge
of the grassy slope that the man-eater attacked me. The grassy
slope is as perpendicular as the wall of a house, and none but
a hillman could find foothold on it. My son, who was eight
years of age at the time, and I had cut grass on that slope on
the day of my misfortune, carrying the grass up in armfuls to
the belt of trees where the ground is level.

' I was stooping down at the very edge of the slope, tying
the grass into a big bundle, when the tiger sprang at me and
buried its teeth, one under my right eye, one in my chin and
the other two here at the back of my neck. The tiger's mouth
struck me with a great blow and I fell over on my back, while
the tiger lay on top of me chest to chest, with its stomach
between my legs. When falling backwards I had flung out my
arms and my right hand had come in contact with an oak
sapling. As my fingers grasped the sapling, an idea came to me.
My legs were free, and if I could draw them up and insert my
feet under and against the tiger's belly, I might be able to push
the tiger off, and run away. The pain, as the tiger crushed all
the bones on the right side of my face, was terrible; but I did
not lose consciousness, for you see, sahib, at that time I was a
young man, and in all the hills there was no one to compare
with me in strength. Very slowly, so as not to anger the tiger
I drew my legs up on either side of it, and gently inserted my
bare feet against its belly. Then placing my left hand against
its chest and pushing and kicking upwards with all my might, I
lifted the tiger right off the ground and, we being on the very
edge of the perpendicular hillside, the tiger went crashing down
and belike would have taken me with him, had my hold on
the sapling not been a good one.

'My son had been too frightened to run away, and when
the tiger had gone, I took his loincloth from him and wrapped

The Chowgarh Tigers 65

it round my head, and holding his hand I walked back to the
village. Arrived at my home I told my wife to call all my
friends together, for I wished to see their faces before I died.
When my friends were assembled and saw my condition, they
wanted to put me on a charpoy and carry me fifty miles to
the Almora hospital, but this I would not consent to; for my
suffering was great, and being assured that my time had come,
I wanted to die where I had been born, and where I had lived
all my life. Water was brought, for I was thirsty and my head
was on fire, but when it was poured into my mouth, it all
flowed out through the holes in my neck. Thereafter, for a
period beyond measure, there was great confusion in my mind,
and much pain in my head and in my neck, and while I waited
and longed for death to end my sufferings my wounds healed
of themselves, and I became well.

'And now, sahib, I am as you see me, old and thin, and
with white hair, and a face that no man can look on without
repulsion. My enemy lives and continues to claim victims but do
not be deceived into thinking it is a tiger, for it is no tiger but an
evil spirit, who, when it craves for human flesh and blood, takes
on for a little while the semblance of a tiger. But they say
you are a sadhu, sahib, and the spirits that guard sadhus are
more powerful than this evil spirit, as is proved by the fact
that you spent three days and three nights alone in the jungle,
and came out as your men said you would alive and unhurt/

Looking at the great frame of the man, it was easy to picture
him as having been a veritable giant. And a giant in strength
he must have been, for no man, unless he had been endowed
with strength far above the average, could have lifted the tigress
into the air, torn its hold from the side of his head, carrying
away, as it did, half his face with it, and hurled it down the
precipitous hill.

My gaunt friend constituted himself our guide, and with a
beautifully polish^ axe, with long tapering handle, over his

64 Man-eaters of Kumaon

shoulder, led us by devious steep paths to the valley below.
Fording the Nandhour river, we crossed several wide terraced
fields, now gone out of cultivation for fear of the man-eater,
and on reaching the foot of the hill started what proved to
be a very atiff climb, through forest, to the grass slopes above.
Gaunt my friend may have been, but he lacked nothing in wind,
and tough as I was it was only by calling frequent halts to
admire the view that I was able to keep up with him.

Emerging from the tree forest, we went diagonally across
the grassy slope, in the direction of a rock cliff that extended
upwards for a thousand feet or more. It was on this cliff,
sprinkled over with tufts of short grass, that I had seen ghooral
feeding from my tent. We had covered a few hundred yards
when one of these small mountain-goats started up out of a
ravine, and at my shot 'crumpled up and slipped back out of
sight. Alarmed by the report of the rifle, another ghooral, that
had evidently been lying asleep at the foot of the cliff, sprang
to his feet and went up the rock face, as only he or his big
brother the tahr could have done. As he climbed upwards, I
lay down and, putting the sight to 200 yards, waited for him
to stop. This he presently did, coming out on a projecting
rock to look down on us. At my shot he staggered, regained
his footing, and very slowly continued his climb. At the second
shot he fell, hung for a second or two on a narrow ledge, and
then fell through space to the grassy slope from whence he had
started. Striking the ground he rolled over and over, passing
within a hundred yards of us, and eventually came to rest on a
cattle track a hundred and fifty yards below.

I have only once, in all the years I have been shooting,
witnessed a similar sight to the one we saw during the next
few minutes, and on that occasion the marauder was a leopard.

The ghooral had hardly come to rest when a big Himalayan
bear came lumbering out of a ravine on the side of the grassy
slope and, with never a pause or backwok, came at a

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' IT WAS THE
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A VILLAGE
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The Chowgarh Tigers 65

fast trot along the cattle track. On reaching the dead goat
he sat down and took it into his lap, and as he started nosing
the goat, I fired. Maybe I hurried over my shot, or allowed
too much for refraction; anyway the bullet went low and struck
the bear in the stomach instead of in the chest. To the six of
us who were intently watching, it appeared that the bear took
the smack of the bullet as an assault from the ghooral, for, rear-
ing up, he flung the animal from him and came galloping along
the track, emitting angry grunts. As he passed a hundred yards
below us I fired my fifth and last cartridge, the bullet, as I
found later, going through the fleshy part of his hind quarters.

While the men retrieved the two ghooral, I descended to
examine the blood trail. The blood on the track showed the
bear to be hard hit, but even so there was danger in following
it up with an empty rifle, for bears are bad-tempered at the
best of times, and are very ugly customers to deal with when
wounded.

When the men rejoined me a short council of war was held.
Camp was three and a half miles away, and as it was now
2 p.m. it would not be possible to fetch more ammunition, track
down and kill the bear, and get back home by dark; so it was
unanimously decided that we should follow up the wounded
animal and try to finish it off with stones and the axe.

The hill was steep and fairly free of undergrowth, and by
keeping above the bear there was a sporting chance of our being
able to accomplish our task without serious mishap. We accord-
ingly set off, I leading the way, followed by three men, the rear
being brought up by two men each with a ghooral strapped
to his back. Arrived at the spot where I had fired my last
shot, additional blood on the track greatly encouraged us. Two
hundred yards further on, the blood trail led down into a deep
ravine. Here we divided up our force, two men crossing to the
far side, the owner of the axe and I remaining on the near side,
with the men carrying the ghooral following in our rear. On

6

66 Man-eaters of Kumaon

the word being given we started to advance down the hill. In
the bed of the ravine, and fifty feet below us, was a dense patch
of stunted bamboo, and when a stone was thrown into this
thicket, the bear got up with a scream of rage; and six men,
putting their best foot foremost, went straight up the hill. I
was not trained to this form of exercise, and on looking back
to see if the bear was gaining on us, I saw, much to my relief,
that he was going as hard downhill as we were going uphill.
A shout to my companions, a rapid change of direction, and we
were off in full cry and rapidly gaining on our quarry. A few
well-aimed shots had been registered, followed by delighted
shouts from the marksmen, and angry grunts from the bear,
when at a sharp bend in the ravine, which necessitated a cauti-
ous advance, we lost touch with the bear. To have followed the
blood trail would have been easy, but here the ravine was full
of big rocks, behind any of which the bear might have been
lurking, so while the encumbered men sat down for a rest, a cast
was made on either side of the ravine. While my companion
went forward to look down into the ravine, I went to the right
to prospect a rocky cliff that went sheer down for some two
hundred feet. Holding to a tree for support, I leaned over and
saw the bear lying on a narrow ledge forty feet immediately
below me. I picked up a stone, about thirty pounds in weight,
and, again advancing to the edge and in imminent danger of
going over myself, I raised the stone above my head with both
hands and hurled it.

The stone struck the ledge a few inches from the bear's head,
and scrambling to his feet he disappeared from sight, to reappear
a minute later on the side of the hill. Once again the hunt was
on. The ground was here more open and less encumbered with
rocks, and the four of us who were running light had no
difficulty in keeping up with him. For a mile or more we ran
him at top speed, until we eventually cleared the forest and
emerged on to the terraced fields. Rainwater had cut several

The Chowgarh Tigers 67, ,

deep and narrow channels across the fields, and in one of these r
channels the bear took cover.

The man with the distorted face was the only armed member
of the party and he was unanimously elected executioner.
Nothing loth, he cautiously approached the bear and, swinging
his beautifully polished axe aloft, brought the square head down
on the bear's skull. The result was as alarming as it was un-
expected. The axe-head rebounded off the bear's skull as
though it had been struck on a block of rubber, and with a
scream of rage the animal reared up on his hind legs. Fortu-
nately he did not follow up his advantage, for we were bunched
together, and in trying to run got in each other's way.

The bear did not appear to like this open ground, and after
going a short way down the channel again took cover. It was
now my turn for the axe. The bear,, however, having once
been struck resented my approach, and it was only after a great
deal of manoeuvring that I eventually got within striking dis-
tance. It had been my ambition when a boy to be a lumber-
man in Canada, and I had attained sufficient proficiency with an
axe to split a match-stick. I had no fear, therefore, as the
owner had, of the axe glancing off and getting damaged on the
stones, and the moment I got within reach I buried the entire
blade in the bear's skull.

Himalayan bearskins are very greatly prized by our hill folk,
and the owner of the axe was a very proud and envied man
when I told him he could have the skin in addition to a double
share of the ghooral meat. Leaving the men, whose numbers
were being rapidly augmented by new arrivals from the village,
to skin and divide up the bag, I climbed up to the village and
paid, as already related, a last visit to the injured girl. The day
had been a strenuous one, and if the man-eater had paid me a
visit that night she would have ' caught me napping ' .

On the road I had taken when coming to Dalkania there
were several long stiff climbs up treeless hills, and when I

68 Man-eaters of Kumaon

mentioned the discomforts of this road to the villagers they had
suggested that I should go back via Haira Khan. This route
Would necessitate only one climb to the ridge above the village,
from where it was downhill all the way to Ranibagh, whence
I could complete the journey to Naini Tal by car.

I had warned my men overnight to prepare for an early
start, and a little before sunrise, leaving them to pack up and
follow me, I said good-bye to my friends at Dalkania and start-
ed on the two-mile climb to the forest road on the ridge above.
The footpath I took was not the one by which my men, and
later I, had arrived at Dalkania, but was one the villagers used
when going to, and returning from, the bazaars in the foot-hills.
The path wound in and out of deep ravines, through thick
oak and pine forests and dense undergrowth. There had been
no news of the tigress for a week. This absence of news made
me all the more careful, and an hour after leaving camp I
arrived without mishap at an open glade near the top of the
hill, within a hundred yards of the forest road.

The glade was pear-shaped, roughly a hundred yards long
and fifty yards wide, with a stagnant pool of rain-water in the
centre of it. Sambur and other game used this pool as a
drinking place and wallow and, curious to see the tracks round
it, I left the path, which skirted the left-hand side of the glade
and passed close under a cliff of rock which extended up to
the road. As 'I approached the pool I saw the pug marks of
the tigress in the soft earth at the edge of the water. She had
approached the pool from the same direction as I had, and,
evidently disturbed by me, had crossed the water and gone
into the dense tree and scrub jungle on the right-hand side of
the glade. A great chance lost, for had I kept as careful a
lookout in front as I had behind I should have seen her before
she saw me. However, though I had missed a chance, the
advantages were now all on my side and distinctly in my favour.
The tigress had seen me, or she would not have crossed

The Chowgarh Tigers 69

the pool and hurried for shelter, as her tracks showed she had
done. Having seen me she had also seen that I was alone, and
watching me from cover as she undoubtedly was, she would
assume I was going to the pool to drink as she had done. My
movements up to this had been quite natural, and if I could
continue to make her think I was unaware of her presence, she
would possibly give me a second chance. Stooping down and
keeping a very sharp lookout from under my hat, I coughed
several times, splashed the water about, and then, moving very
slowly and gathering dry sticks on the way, I went to the foot
of the steep rock. Here I built a small fire, and putting my
back to the rock lit a cigarette. By the time the cigarette had
been smoked the fire had burnt out. I then lay down, and
pillowing my head on my left arm placed the rifle on the ground
with rny finger on the trigger.

The rock above me was too steep for any animal to find
foothold on. I had therefore only my front to guard, and
as the heavy cover nowhere approached to within less than
twenty yards of my position I was quite safe. I had all this
time neither seen nor heard anything; nevertheless, I was con-
vinced that the tigress was watching me. The rim of my hat,
while effectually shading my eyes, did not obstruct my vision
and inch by inch I scanned every bit of the jungle within my
range of view. There was not a breath of win^blowing, and
not a leaf or blade of grass stirred. My men, whom I had
instructed to keep close together and sing from the time they
left camp until they joined me on the forest road, were not
due for an hour and a half, and during this time it was more
than likely that the tigress would break cover and try to stalk,
or rush, me.

There are oc