THE KANDA MAN-EATER

HOWEVER little faith we have in the superstitions we share
with others thirteen at a table, the passing of wine at
dinner, walking under a ladder, and so on our own private
superstitions, though a source of amusement to our friends, are
very real to us.

I do not know if sportsmen are more superstitious than the
rest of mankind, but I do know that they take their superstitions
very seriously. One of my friends invariably takes five car-
tridges, never more and never less, when he goes out after big
game, and another as invariably takes seven cartridges.
Another, who incidentally was the best-known big-game sports-
man in Northern India, never started the winter shooting season
without first killing a mahseer. My own private superstition
concerns snakes. When after man-eaters I have a deep rooted
conviction that, however much I may try, all my efforts will be
unavailing until I have first killed a snake.

During the hottest days of one May I had from dawn to
dark climbed innumerable miles up and down incredibly steep
hills, and through thick thorn bushes that had left my hands
and knees a mass of ugly scratches, in search of a very wary
man-eater. I returned on that fifteenth evening, dog-tired, to
the two-roomed Forest Bungalow I was staying at to find a
deputation of villagers waiting for me with the very welcome
news that the man-eater, a tiger, had been seen that day on the
outskirts of their village. It was too late to do anything that
night, so the deputation were provided with lanterns and sent
home with strict injunctions that no one was to leave the village
the following day.

The village was situated at the extreme end of the ridge on
which the bungalow was, and because of its isolated position
and the thick forest that surrounded it, had suffered more from
the depredations of the tiger than any other village in the

146 Man-eaters of Kumaon

district. The most recent victims were two women and a man.

I had made one complete circle of the village the following
morning and had done the greater part of a second circle, a
quarter of a mile below the first, when after negotiating a diffi-
cult scree of shale I came on a little nullah made by the rush
of rain-water down the steep hillside. A glance up and down
the nullah satisfied me that the tiger was not in it, and then a
movement just in front of me, and about twenty-five feet away,
caught my eye. At this spot there was a small pool of water
the size of a bath-tub, and on the far side of it was a snake that
had evidently been drinking. The lifting of the snake's head
had caught my eye and it was not until the head had been
raised some two or three feet from the ground and the hood
expanded that I realized it was a hamadryad. It was the most
beautiful snake I had ever seen. The throat, as it faced me,
was a deep orange red shading to golden yellow where the body
met the ground. The back, olive green, was banded by ivory-
coloured chevrons, and some four feet of its length from the tip
of its tail upwards was shiny black, with white chevrons. In
length the snake was between thirteen and fourteen feet.

One hears many tales about hamadryads, their aggressiveness
when disturbed, and the speed at which they can travel. If,
as it seemed about to do, the snake attacked, up or down hill I
should be at a disadvantage, but across the shale scree I felt that
I could hold my own. A shot at the expanded hood, the size
of a small plate, would have ended the tension, but the rifle in
my hands was a heavy one and I had no intention of disturbing
the tiger that had showed up after so many days of weary wait-
ing and toil. After an interminably long minute, during which
time the only movement was the flicking in and out of a long
and quivering forked tongue, the snake closed his hood, lowered
his head to the ground and, turning, made off up the opposite
slope. Without taking my eyes off him I groped with my hand
on the hillside and picked up a stone that filled my hand as

The Kanda Man-eater 147

comfortably as a cricket ball. The snake had just reached a
sharp ridge of hard clay when the stone, launched with the
utmost energy I was capable of, struck it on the back of the
head. The blow would have killed any other snake outright
but the only, and very alarming, effect it had on the hamadryad
was to make it whip round and come straight towards me. A
second and a larger stone fortunately caught it on the neck when
it had covered half the distance between us, and after that the
rest was easy. With a great feeling of satisfaction I completed
the second circle round the village, and though it proved as
fruitless as the first, I was elated at having killed the snake.
Now, for the first time in many days, I had a feeling that my
search for the man-eater would be successful.

The following day I again searched the forest surrounding
the village, and towards evening found the fresh pug marks
of the tiger at the edge of a ploughed field overlooking the
village. The occupants of the village, numbering about a
hundred, were by now thoroughly alarmed, and leaving them
with the assurance that I would return early next day I set out
on my lonely four-mile walk back to the Forest Bungalow.

To walk with safety through forests or along deserted roads
in an area in which a man-eater is operating calls for the utmost
caution and the strict observance of many rules. It is only
when the hunter has repeatedly been the hunted that the senses
can be attuned to the required pitch, and those rules be strictly
adhered to, the breaking of which would provide the man-eater
with an easy victim.

The reader may ask, ' Why a lonely walk?', when I probably
had men and to spare with me in camp. My answer to this
very natural question would be: first, because one is apt to get
careless and rely too much on one's companions, and second,
because in a mix-up with a tiger one has a better chance when
one is alone.

The next morning, as I approached the village, I saw an

148 Man-eaters of Kumaon

eager throng of men waiting for me, and when within earshot
I was greeted with the gratifying news that a buffalo had been
killed during the night. The animal had been killed in the
village, and after being dragged some distance along the ridge
had been taken down into a narrow, deep, and very heavily
wooded valley on the north face of the hill.

A very careful reconnaissance from a projecting rock on the
ridge satisfied me that an approach down the steep hill, along
the line of the drag, would not be advisable, and that the only
thing to do was to make a wide detour, enter the valley from
the lower end and work up to the spot where I expected to find
the kill.

This manoeuvre was successfully accomplished, and by mid-
day I had arrived at the spot marked from above where the
valley flattened out for a hundred yards before going straight
up three hundred yards to the ridge above. It was at the upper
end of this flat bit of ground that I expected to find the kill,
and with luck, the tiger. The long and difficult climb up the
valley through dense thickets of thorn bush and stunted bamboo
had brought out a bath of sweat, and as it was not advisable to
take on a job where quick firing might be necessary with sweaty
hands, I sat down for a much-needed rest and for a smoke.

The ground in front of me was strewn with large smooth
boulders among which a tiny stream meandered, forming wher-
ever possible small crystal-clear pools. Shod with the thinnest
of rubber-soled shoes, the going over these boulders was ideal
for my purpose, and when I had cooled and dried I set off to
stalk the kill in the hope of finding the tiger lying asleep near
it. When three-quarters of the ground had been covered I
caught sight of the kill tucked away under a bank of ferns, and
about twenty-five yards away from where the hill went steeply
tip to the ridge. The tiger was not in sight, and, very cautious-
ly drawing level with the kill I took up my position oil a flat
boulder to scan every inch of ground visible.

The Kanda Man-eater 149

The premonition of impending danger is too well known and
established a fact to need any comment. For three or four
minutes I had stood perfectly still with no thought of danger
and then all at once I became aware that the tiger was looking
at me at a very short range. The same sense that had conveyed
the feeling of impending danger to me had evidently operated
in the same way on the tiger and awakened him from his sleep.
To my left front were some dense bushes, growing on a bit
of flat ground. On these bushes, distant fifteen to twenty feet
from me, and about the same distance from the kill, my interest
centred. Presently the bushes were gently stirred and the next
second I caught sight of the tiger going at full speed up the
steep hillside. Before I could get the rifle to bear on him he
disappeared behind a creeper-covered tree, and it was not until
he had covered about sixty yards that I again saw him, as he
was springing up the face of a rock. At my shot he fell back-
wards and came roaring down the hill, bringing an avalanche of
stones with him. A broken back, I concluded; and just as I
was wondering how best to deal with him when he should arrive
all-of-a-heap at my feet, the roaring ceased, and the next
minute, as much to my relief as to my disappointment, I saw
him going fullout, and apparently unwounded, across the side
of the hill. The momentary glimpses I caught of him offered
no shot worth taking, and with a crash through some dry bam-
boos he disappeared round the shoulder of the hill into the next
valley,

I subsequently found that my bullet, fired at an angle of
seventy-five degrees, had hit the tiger on the left elbow and
chipped out a section from that bone which some cynical humo-
rist has named the ' funny bone '. Carrying on, the bullet had
struck the rock and, splashing back, had delivered a smashing
blow on the point of the jaw. Neither wound, however painful
it may have been, was fatal, and the only result of my follow-
ing up the very light blood trail into the next valley was to be

150 Man-eaters of Kumaon

growled at from a dense thorn thicket, to enter which would
have been suicidal.

My shot had been heard in the village and an expectant
crowd were waiting for me on the ridge. They were even more
disappointed, if that were possible, than I was at the failure of
my carefully planned and as carefully executed stalk.

On visiting the kill the following morning I was very pleased
and not a little surprised to find that the tiger had returned to
it during the night and taken a light meal. The only way now
of getting a second shot was to sit up over the kill; and here a
difficulty presented itself. There were no suitable trees within
convenient distance of the kill, and the very unpleasant experi-
ence I had had on a former occasion had effectively cured me
of sitting at night on the ground for a man-eater. While still
undecided where to sit I heard the tiger call, some distance down
the valley up which I had climbed the previous day. The call-
ing of the tiger offered me a very welcome chance of shooting
it in the most pleasant way it is possible of bringing one of these
animals to bag. .The conditions under which a tiger can be
called up are (tfj when rampaging through the forest in search
of a mate, and (#j when lightly wounded. It goes without
saying that the sportsman must be able to call sufficiently well to
deceive the tiger, and that the call must come from a spot to
which the tiger will quite naturally come a dense thicket, or a
patch of heavy grass and that the sportsman must be prepared
to take his shot at a very close range. I am quite certain that
many sportsmen will be sceptical of the statement I have made
that a lightly wounded tiger will come to a call. I would ask all
such to reserve their judgement until they have tried to experi-
ment for themselves. On the present occasion, however, though
the tiger answered me, call for call, for upwards of an hour, he
refused to come any nearer, and I attributed my failure to the
fact that I was calling from the spot where the previous day the
tiger had met with an unfortunate experience.

The Kanda Man-eater 151

The tree I finally selected was growing on the very edge of
a perpendicular bank and had a convenient branch about eight
feet from the ground. When sitting on this branch I should be
thirty feet from, and directly above, the boulder-strewn ravine
up which I expected the tiger to come. The question of the
tree settled, I returned to the ridge where I had instructed my
men to meet me with breakfast.

By four o'clock in the evening I was comfortably seated on
the branch and prepared for a long and a hard sit-up. Before
leaving my men I had instructed them to cooee to me from
the ridge at sunrise next morning. If I answered with the call
of a leopard they were to sit tight, but if they received no
answer, they were to form two parties with as many villagers as
they could collect and come down on either side of the valley,
shouting and throwing stones.

I have acquired the habit of sleeping in any position on a
tree, and as I was tired the evening did not pass unpleasantly.
As the setting sun was gilding the hilltops above me I was
roused to full consciousness by the alarm-call of a langur. I
soon located the monkey, sitting in a tree-top on the far side of
the valley, and as it was looking in my direction I concluded
it had mistaken me for a leopard. The alarm-call was repeated
at short intervals, and finally ceased as darkness came OR.

Hour after hour I strained my eyes and ears, and was suddenly
startled by a stone rolling down the hillside and striking my tree.
The stone was followed by the stealthy padding of a heavy,
soft-footed animal, unmistakably the tiger. At first I comforted
myself with the thought that his coming in this direction, instead
of up the valley, was accidental, but this thought was soon dis-
pelled when he started to emit low deep growls from imme-
diately behind me. Quite evidently he had come into the valley
while I was having breakfast, and, taking up a position on the
hill, where the monkey had later seen him, had watched me
climbing into the tree. Here was a situation I had not counted

152 Man-eaters of Kumaon

on and one that needed careful handling. The branch that had
provided a comfortable seat while daylight lasted, admitted of
little change of position in the dark. I could, of course, have
fired off my rifle into the air, but the terrible results I have seen
following an attempt to drive away a tiger at very close quarters
by discharging a gun dissuaded me from taking this action.
Further, even if the tiger had not attacked, the discharge of the
rifle (a 450/400) so near him would probably have made him
leave the locality and all my toil would have gone for nothing.

I knew the tiger would not spring for that would have carried
him straight down a drop of thirty feet on to the rocks below.
But there was no need for him to spring, for by standing on
his hind legs he could easily reach me. Lifting the rifle off my
lap and reversing it, I pushed the barrel between my left ami
and side, depressing the muzzle and slipping up the safety-catch
as I did so. This movement was greeted by a deeper growl than
any that had preceded it. If the tiger now reached up for me
he would in all probability come in contact with the rifle, round
the triggers, of which my fingers were crooked, and even if I
failed to kill him the confusion following on my shot would give
me a sporting chance of climbing higher into the tree. Time
dragged by on leaden feet, and, eventually, tiring of prowling
about the hillside and growling, the tiger sprang across a little
ravine on my left and a few minutes later I heard the welcome
sound of a bone being cracked at the kill. At last I was able to
relax in my uncomfortable position and the only sounds I heard
for the rest of the night came from the direction of the kill.

The sun had been up but a few minutes and the valley was
still in deep shadow when my men cooeed from the ridge, and
almost immediately afterwards I caught sight of the tiger mak-
ing off at a fast canter up, and across, the hill on my left. In
the uncertain light and with my nightlong-strained eyes the shot
was a very difficult one, but I took it, and had the satisfaction
of seeing the bullet going home. Turning with a great roar, he

The Kanda Man-eater 153

came straight for my tree, and as he was in the act of springing
the second bullet, with great good fortune, crashed into his
chest. Diverted in his spring by the impact of the heavy bullet,
the tiger struck the tree just short of me, and ricochetting off it
went headlong into the valley below, where his fall was broken
by one of the small pools already alluded to. He floundered
out of the water, leaving it dyed red with his blood, and went
lumbering down the valley and out of sight.

Fifteen hours on the hard branch had cramped every muscle
in my body, and it was not until I had swarmed down the tree,
staining my clothes in the great gouts of blood the tiger had
left on it, and had massaged my stiff limbs, that I was able to
follow him. He had gone but a short distance, and I found him
lying dead at the foot of a rock in another pool of water.

Contrary to my orders the men, collected on the ridge, hear-
ing my shot and the tiger's roar followed by a second shot,
came in a body down the hill. Arrived at the bloodstained tree,
at the foot of which my soft hat was lying, they not unnaturally
concluded I had been carried off by the tiger. Hearing their
shouts of alarm I called out to them, and again they came run-
ning down the valley, only to be brought up with a gasp of
dismay when they saw my blood-stained clothes. Reassured
that I was not injured and that the blood on my clothes was
not mine, a moment later they were crowding round the tiger.
A stout sapling was soon cut and lashed to him with creepers,
and the tiger, with -no little difficulty and a great deal of shout-
ing, was carried up the steep hill to the village.

In remote areas in which long-established man-eaters are
operating, many gallant acts of heroism are performed, which
the local inhabitants accept as everyday occurrences and the
outside world have no means of hearing about. I should like
to put on record one such act concerning the Kanda man-eater's
last human victim. I arrived on the scene shortly after the
occurrence, and from details supplied by the villagers and from

COPY OF PETITION
SENT TO THE AUTHOR BY THE PEOPLE OF GARHWAL

The promise mentioned on page 112, was made after receiving

this petition

From The Public of patty Painaun, Bungi and Bickla Badalpur

District Garhwal
To Captain J. E. Carbitt, Esq., I.A.R.O., Kaladhungi

Distt. Naini Tal

Respected Sir

We all the public (of the above 3 Patties) most humbly and respectfully
beg to lay the following lew lines lor your kind consideration and doing
needful.

That in this vicinity a tiger has turned out man-eater since December
last. Up to this date he has killed 5 men and wounded 2. So we the
public are in a great distress. By the fear of this tiger we cannot watch
our wheat crop at night so the cleers have ncaily ruined it. We cannot
go in the forest for fodder grass nor we can enter our catties in the forest
to graze so many of our cattle are to die. Under the ciicumstances we
are nearly to be ruined. The Forest Ollicials are doing every possible
arrangement to kill this tiger but there is no hope of any success.
2 shikari gentlemen also tried to shoot it but unfoitunatcly they could not
get it. Our kind District Magistrate has notified Rs. 150 reward for
killing this tiger, so every one is trying to kill it but no success. We
have heard that your kind self have killed many man-eater tigers and
leopards. For this you have earned a good name specially in Kumaon
revenue Division. The famous mari-catcr leonaid of Nagpur has been
shoot by you. This is the voice of all the public here that this tiger also
will be killed only by you. So we the public venture to request that you
very kindly take trouble to come to this place and shoot this tiger (our
enemy) and save the public from this calamity. For this act of kindness
we the public will be highly obliged and will pray for your long life
and prosperity. Hope you will surely consider on our condition and
take trouble to come here for saving us from this calamity. The route
to this place is as follows Ramnagar to Sultan, Sultan to Lahachaur,
Lahachaur to Kanda. If your honour kindly inform us the date of your
arrival at Ramnagar we will send our men and cart to Ramnagar to
meet you and accompany you.

We beg to remain

Sir

Your most sincerely

Dated Jharat Signed Govind Singh Ncgi

The i8th February 1933 Headman Village Jharat

followed by 40 signatures and 4 thumb impressions of
inhabitants of Painaun f Bungi and Bickla Badalpur Patties.
Address

The Govind Singh Negi
Village Jharat Patty
Painaun, P.O.
Badialgaon Dist., Garhwal, U.P.

The Kanda Man-eater 155

a careful examination of the ground, which had not been dis-
turbed in the interval, I am able to present you with a story
which I believe to be correct in every detail.

In the village near which I shot the Kanda man-eater lived
an elderly man and his only son. The father had served in
the army during the 1914-18 war and it was his ambition to
get his son enlisted in the Royal Garhwal Rifles not as simple
a job in the 'piping days of peace ', when vacancies were few
and applicants many, as it is today. Shortly after the lad's
eighteenth birthday a party of men passed through the village on
their way to the bazaar at Lansdowne. The lad joined this party
and immediately on arrival at Lansdowne presented himself at
the Recruiting Office. As his father had taught him to salute
with military precision and how to conduct himself in the pres-
ence of a Recruiting Officer, he was accepted without any hesi-
tation, and, after enrolment, was given leave to deposit his few
personal possessions at home before starting his army training.

He arrived back home at about midday, after an absence of
five days, and was told by the friends who thronged round him
to hear his news that his father was away ploughing their small
holding at the extreme end of the village and would not return
before nightfall. (The field that was being ploughed was the
same one on which I had seen the pug marks of the man-eater
the day I killed the hamadryad.)

One of the lad's jobs had been to provide fodder for their
cattle, and after he had partaken of the midday meal in a
neighbour's house he set out with a party of twenty men to
collect leaves.

The village, as I have told you, is situated on a ridge, and is
surrounded by forests. Two women had already been killed by
the man-eater while cutting grass in these forests, and for several
months the cattle had been kept alive on leaves cut from the
trees surrounding the village. Each day the men had to go
further afield to get their requirements, and on this particular

156 Man-eaters of Kumaon

day the party of twenty-one, after crossing the cultivated land, v
went for a quarter of a mile down a very steep rocky hill to
the head of the valley which runs east for eight miles, through
dense forest, to where it meets the Ramganga river opposite the
Dhikala Forest Bungalow.

At the head of the valley the ground is more or less flat and
overgrown with big trees. Here the men separated, each climb-
ing into a tree of his choice, and after cutting the quantity of
leaves required they tied them into bundles with rope brought
for the purpose, and returned to the village in twos and threes.

Either when the party of men were coming down the hill,
talking at the tops of their voices to keep up their courage and
scare away the man-eater, or when they were on the trees shout-
ing to each other, the tiger, who was lying up in a dense patch
of cover half a mile down the valley, heard them. Leaving the
cover, in which it had four days previously killed and eaten a
sambur hind, the tiger crossed a stream and by way of a cattle
track that runs the entire length of the valley hurried up in the
direction of the men. (The speed at which a tiger has travelled
over any ground on which he has left signs of his passage can
be easily determined from the relative position of his fore and
hind pug marks.)

The lad of my story had selected a Bauhinea tree from which
to cut leaves for his cattle. This tree was about twenty yards
above the cattle track, and the upper branches were leaning out
over a small ravine in which there were two rocks. From a
bend in the cattle track the tiger saw the lad on the tree, and
after lying down and watching him for some time it left the
track and concealed itself behind a fallen silk cotton tree some
thirty yards from the ravine. When the lad had cut all the
leaves he needed he descended from the tree and collected them
in a heap, preparatory to tying them into a bundle. While doing
this on the open flat ground he was comparatively safe, but un-
fortunately he had noticed that two of the branches he had cut

The Kanda Man-eater 157

had fallen into the ravine between the two big rocks, and he
sealed his fate by stepping down into the ravine to recover them.
As soon as he was out of sight the tiger left the shelter of the
fallen tree and crept forward to the edge of the ravine, and as
the lad was stooping down to pick up the branches, it sprang
on him and killed him. Whether the killing took place while
the other men were still on the trees, or after they had left, it
was not possible for me to determine.

The father of the lad returned to the village at sunset and
was greeted with the very gratifying news that his son had been
accepted for the army, and that he had returned from Lans-
downe on short leave. Asking where the lad was, he was told
that he had gone out earlier in the day to get fodder, and sur-
prise was expressed that the father had not found him at home.
After bedding down the bullocks the father went from house to
house to find his son. All the men who had been out that day
were questioned in turn, and all had the same tale to tell that
they had separated at the head of the valley, and no one could
remember having seen the lad after that.

Crossing the terraced cultivated land the father went to the
edge of the steep hill, and called, and called again, to his son,
but received no answer.

Night was by now setting in. The man returned to his home
and lit a small smoke-dimmed lantern, and as he passed through
the village he horrified his neighbours by telling them, in reply
to their questions, that he was going to look for his son. He
was asked if he had forgotten the man-eater and answered that
it was because of the man-eater that he was so anxious to find
his son, for it was possible he had fallen off a tree and injured
himself and, for fear of attracting the man-eater, had not
answered to his call.

He did not ask anyone to accompany him, and no one
offered to do so, and for the whole of that night he searched
up and down that valley in which no one had dared to set foot

158 Man-eaters of Kumaon

since the advent of the man-eater. Four times during the night
as I saw from his foot-prints when going along the cattle
track he had passed within ten feet of where the tiger was lying
eating his son.

Weary and heartsick he climbed a little way up the rocky
hill as light was coming, and sat down for a rest. From this
raised position he could see into the ravine. At sunrise he saw a
glint of blood on the two big rocks, and hurrying down to the
spot he found all that the tiger had left of his son. These remains
he collected and took back to his home, and when a suitable
shroud had been procured, his friends helped him to carry the
remains to the burning ghat on the banks of the Mandal river.

I do not think it would be correct to assume that acts such
as these are performed by individuals who lack imagination and
who therefore do not realize the grave risks they run. The
people of our hills, in addition to being very sensitive to their
environments, are very superstitious, and every hill-top, valley,
and gorge is credited with possessing a spirit in one form or
another, all of the evil and malignant kind most to be feared
during the hours of darkness. A man brought up in these sur-
roundings, and menaced for over a year by a man-eater, who,
unarmed and alone, from sunset to sunrise, could walk through
dense forests which his imagination peopled with evil spirits, and
in which he had every reason to believe a man-eater was lurk-
ing, was in my opinion possessed of a quality and a degree of
courage that is given to few. All the more do I give him credit
for his act of heroism for not being conscious that he had done
anything unusual, or worthy of notice. When at my request he
sat down near the man-eater to enable me to take a photograph,
he looked up at me and said, in a quiet and collected voice, ' I
am content now, sahib, for you have avenged my son.'

This was the last of the three man-eaters that I had promised
the District Officials of Kumaon, and later the people of Garh-
wal, that I would do my best to rid them of.