THE THAK MAN-EATER

PEACE had reigned in the Ladhya valley for many months
when in September '38 a report was received in Naini Tal
that a girl, twelve years of age, had been killed by a tiger at
Kot Kindri village. The report which reached me through
Donald Stewart of the Forest Department gave no details, and
it was not until I visited the village some weeks later that I was
able to get particulars of the tragedy. It appeared that, about
noon one day, this girl was picking up windfalls from a mango
tree close to and in full view of the village, when a tiger suddenly
appeared. Before the men working nearby were able to render
any assistance, it carried her off. No attempt was made to

The Thak Man-eater 169

follow up the tiger, and as all signs of drag and blood trail had
been obliterated and washed away long before I arrived on the
scene, I was unable to find the place where the tiger had taken
the body to.

Kot Kindi is about four miles south-west of Chuka, and
three miles due west of Thak. It was in the valley between
Kot Kindri and Thak that the Chuka man-eater had been shot
the previous April.

During the summer of '38 the Forest Department had marked
all the trees in this area for felling, and it was feared that if
the man-eater was not accounted for before November when
the felling of the forest was due to start the contractors would
not be able to secure labour, and would repudiate their contracts.
It was in this connexion that Donald Stewart had written to me
shortly after the girl had been killed, and when in compliance
with his request I promised to go to Kot Kindri, I must confess
that it was more in the interests of the local inhabitants than
in the interest of the contractors that I gave my promise.

My most direct route to Kot Kindri was to go by rail to
Tanakpur, and from there by foot via Kaldhunga and Chuka.
This route, however, though it would save me a hundred miles
of walking, would necessitate my passing through the most
deadly malaria belt in northern India, and to avoid it I decided
to go through the hills to Mornaula, and from there along the
abandoned Sherring road to its termination on the ridge above
Kot Kindri.

While my preparations for this long trek were still under way
a second report reached Naini Tal of a kill at Sem, a small
village on the left bank of the Ladhya and distant about half
a mile from Chuka.

The victim on this occasion was an elderly woman, the
mother of the Headman of Sem. This unfortunate woman had
been killed while cutting brushwood on a steep bank between
two terraced fields. She had started work at the further end of

170 Man-eaters of Rumaoii

the fifty-yard-long bank, and had cut the brushwood to within
a yard of her hut when the tiger sprang on her from the field
above. So sudden and unexpected was the attack that the
woman only had time to scream once before the tiger killed her,
and taking her up the twelve-foot-high bank crossed the upper
field and disappeared with her into the dense jungle beyond.
Her son, a lad some twenty years of age, was at the time work-
ing in a paddy field a few yards away and witnessed the whole
occurrence, but was too frightened to try to render any assist-
ance. In response to the lad's urgent summons the Patwari
arrived at Sem two days later, accompanied by eighty men he
had collected. Following up in the direction the tiger had gone,
he found the woman's clothes and a few small bits of bone.
This kill had taken place at 2 p.m. on a bright sunny day, and
the tiger had eaten its victim only sixty yards from the hut
where it had killed her.

On receipt of this second report Ibbotson, Deputy Commis-
sioner of the three Districts of Almora, Naini Tal and Garhwal,
and I held, a council of war, the upshot of which was that
Ibbotson, who was on the point of setting out to settle a land
dispute at Askot on the border of Tibet, changed his tour
programme and, instead of going via Bagashwar, decided to
accompany me to Sem, and from there go on to Askot.

The route I had selected entailed a considerable amount of
hill-climbing so we eventually decided to go up the Nandhour
valley, cross the watershed between the Nandhour and Ladhya,
and follow the latter river down to Sem. The Ibbotsons accord-
ingly left Naini Tal on I2th October, and the following day I
joined them at Chaurgallia.

Going up the Nandhour and fishing as we went our best
day's catch on light trout rods was a hundred and twenty fish
we arrived on the fifth day at Durga Pepal. Here we left the
river, and after a very stiff climb camped for the night on the
watershed. Making an early start next morning we pitched our

The Thak Man-eater 171

tents that night on the left bank of the Ladhya, twelve miles
from Chalti.

The monsoon had given over early, which was very fortunate
for us, for owing to the rock cliffs that run sheer down into the
valley the river has to be crossed every quarter of a mile or so.
At one of these fords my cook, who stands five feet in his boots,
was washed away and only saved from a watery grave by the
prompt assistance of the man who was carrying our lunch basket.

On the tenth day after leaving Chaurgallia we made camp
on a deserted field at Sem, two hundred yards from the hut
where the woman had been killed, and a hundred yards from
the junction of the Ladhya and Sarda rivers.

Gill Waddell, of the Police, whom we met on our way down
the Ladhya, had camped for several days at Sem and had tied
out a buffalo that MacDonald of the Forest Department had
very kindly placed at our disposal, and though the tiger had
visited Sem several times during Waddell' s stay, it had not
killed the buffalo.

The day following our arrival at Sem, while Ibbotson was
interviewing Patwaris, Forest Guards, and Headmen of the
surrounding villages, I went out to look for pug marks.
Between our camp and the junction, and also on both banks of
the Ladhya, there were long stretches of sand. On this sand I
found the tracks of a tigress, and of a young male tiger possibly
one of the cubs I had seen in April. The tigress had crossed
and recrossed the Ladhya a number of times during the last
few days, and the previous night had walked along the strip of
sand in front of our tents. It was this tigress the villagers sus-
pected of being the man-eater, and as she had visited Sem
repeatedly since the day the Headman's mother had been killed
they were probably correct.

An examination of the pug marks of the tigress showed her
as being an average-sized animal, in the prime of life. Why she
had become a man-eater would have to be determined later, but

172 Man-eaters of Kumaon

one of the reasons might have been that she had assisted to eat
the victims of the Chuka tiger when they were together the
previous mating season, and having acquired a taste for human
flesh and no longer having a mate to provide her with it, had
now turned a man-eater herself. This was only a surmise, and
proved later to be incorrect.

Before leaving Naini Tal I had written to the Tahsildar of
Tanakpur and asked him to purchase four young male buffaloes
for me, and to send them to Sem. One of these buffaloes died
on the road, the other three arrived on the 24th , and we tied
them out the same evening together with the one MacDonald
had given us. On going out to visit these animals next morning
I found the people of Chuka in a great state of excitement. The
fields round the village had been recently ploughed, and the
tigress the previous night had passed close to three families who
were sleeping out on the fields with their cattle; fortunately in
each case the cattle had seen the tigress and warned the sleepers
of her approach. After leaving the cultivated land the tigress had
gone up the track in the direction of Kot Kindri, and had passed
close to two of our buffaloes without touching either of them.

The Patwari, Forest Guards, and villagers had told us on our
arrival at Sem that it would be a waste of time tying out our
young buffaloes, as they were convinced the man-eater would
not kill them. The reason they gave was that this method of
trying to shoot the man-eater had been tried by others without
success, and that in any case if the tigress wanted to eat
buffaloes there were many grazing in the jungles for her to
choose from. In spite of this advice however we continued to
tie out our buffaloes, and for the next two nights the tigress
passed close to one or more of them, without touching them.

On the morning of the 27th, just as we were finishing break-
fast, a party of men led by Tewari, the brother of the Headman
of Thak, arrived in camp and reported that a man of their
village was missing. They stated that this man had left the

The Thak Man-eater 173

village at about noon the previous day, telling his wife before
leaving that he was going to see that his cattle did not stray
beyond the village boundary, and as he had not returned they
feared he had been killed by the man-eater.

Our preparations were soon made, and at ten o'clock the
Ibbotsons and I set off for Thak, accompanied by Tewari and
the men he had brought with him. The distance was only
about two miles but the climb was considerable, and as we did
not want to lose more time than we could possibly help we
arrived at the outskirts of the village out of breath, and in a
lather of sweat.

As we approached the village over the scrub-covered flat bit
of ground which I have reason to refer to later, we heard a
woman crying. The wailing of an Indian woman mourning her
dead is unmistakable, and on emerging from the jungle we came
on the mourner the wife of the missing man and some ten or
fifteen men, who were waiting for us on the edge of the culti-
vated land. These people informed us that from their houses
above they had seen some white object, which looked 4ike part of
the missing man's clothing, in a field overgrown with scrub thirty
yards from where we were now standing. Ibbotson, Tewari and
I set off to investigate the white object, while Mrs Ibbotson
took the woman and the rest of the men up to the village.

The field, which had been out of cultivation for some years,
was covered with a dense growth of scrub not milike chrysanthe-
mum, and it was not until we were standing right over the white
object that Tewari recognized it as the loin-cloth of the missing
man. Near it was the man's cap. A struggle had taken place
at this spot, but there was no blood. The absence of blood
where the attack had taken place and for some considerable
distance along the drag could be accounted for by the tigress
having retained her first hold, for no blood would flow in such
a case until the hold had been changed.
Thirty yards on the hill above us there was a clump of bushes

174 Man-caters of Kumaon

roofed over with creepers. This spot would have to be looked
at before following up the drag, for it was not advisable to
have the tigress behind us. In the soft earth under the bushes
we found the pug marks of the tigress, and where she had lain
before going forward to attack the man.

Returning to our starting point we agreed on the following
plan of action. Our primary object was to try to stalk the
tigress and shoot her on her kill: to achieve this end I was to
follow the trail and at the same time keep a lookout in front,
with Tewari who was unarmed a yard behind me keeping a
sharp lookout to right and left, and Ibbotson a yard behind
Tewari to safeguard us against an attack from the rear. In the
event of either Ibbotson or I seeing so much as a hair of the
tigress, we were to risk a shot.

Cattle had grazed over this area the previous day, disturbing
the ground, and as there was no blood and the only indication
of the tigress's passage was an occasional turned-up leaf or
crushed blade of grass, progress was slow. After carrying the
man for tw> hundred yards the tigress had killed and left him,
and had returned and carried him off several hours later, when
the people of Thak had heard several sambur calling in this
direction. The reason for the tigress not having carried the man
away after she had killed him was possibly due to his cattle
having witnessed the attack on him, and driven her away.

A big pool ot blood had formed where the man had been
lying, and as the blood from the wound in his throat had stop-
ped flowing by the time the tigress had picked him up again, and
further, as she was now holding him by the small of the back,
whereas she had previously held him by the neck, tracking be-
came even more difficult. The tigress kept to the contour of
the hill, and as the undergrowth here was very dense and visi-
bility only extended to a few yards, our advance was slowed
down. In two hours we covered half a mile, and reached a ridge
beyond which lay the valley in which, six months previously, we

The Thak Man-eater 175

had tracked down and killed the Chuka man-eater. On this
ridge was a great slab of rock, which sloped upwards and away
from the direction in which we had come. The tigress's tracks
went down to the right of the rock and I felt sure she was lying
up under the overhanging portion of it, or in the close vicinity.

Both Ibbotson and I had on light rubber-soled shoes Tewari
was bare-footed and we had reached the rock without making
a sound. Signing to my two companions to stand still and keep
a careful watch all round, I got a foothold on the rock, and inch
by inch went forward. Beyond the rock was a short stretch of
flat ground, and as more of this ground came into view, I felt
certain my suspicion that the tigress was lying under the pro-
jection was correct. I had still a foot or two to go before I could
look over, when I saw a movement to my left front. A golden-
rod that had been pressed down had sprung erect, and a second
later there was a slight movement in the bushes beyond, and a
monkey in a tree on the far side of the bushes started calling.

The tigress had chosen the spot for her after-dinner sleep with
great care, but unfortunately for us she was not asleep; and
when she saw the top of my head I had removed my hat
appearing over the rock, she had risen and, taking a step side-
ways, had disappeared under a tangle of blackberry bushes.
Had she been lying anywhere but where she was she could not
have got away, no matter how quickly she had moved, without
my getting a shot at her. Our so-carefully-carried-out stalk had
failed at the very last moment, and there was nothing to be done
now but find the kill, and see if there was sufficient of it left for
us to sit up over. To have followed her into the blackberry
thicket would have been useless, and would also have reduced
our chance of getting a shot at her later.

The tigress had eaten her meal close to where she had been
lying and as this spot was open to the sky and to the keen
eyes of vultures she had removed the kill to a place of safety
where it would not be visible from the air. Tracking now was

176 Man-eaters of Kumaon

easy, for there was a blood trail to follow. The trail led over a
ridge of great rocks and fifty yards beyond these rocks we found
the kill.

I am not going to harrow your feelings by attempting to
describe that poor torn and mangled thing; stripped of every
stitch of clothing and atom of dignity, which only a few hours
previously had been a Man, the father of two children and the
breadwinner of the wailing woman who was facing without
any illusions the fate of a widow of India. I have seen many
similar sights, each more terrible than the one preceding it, in
the thirty-two years I have been hunting man-eaters, and on
each occasion I have felt that it would have been better to have
left the victim to the slayer than recover a mangled mass of
flesh to be a nightmare ever after to those who saw it. And yet
the cry of blood for blood, and the burning desire to rid a
countryside of a menace than which there is none more terrible,
is irresistible; and then there is always the hope, no matter how
absurd one knows it to be, that the victim by some miracle may
still be alive and in need of succour.

The chance of shooting over a kill an animal that has in all
probability become a man-eater through a wound received over
a kill, is very remote, and each succeeding failure, no matter
what its cause, tends to make the animal more cautious, until
it reaches a state when it either abandons its kill after one meal
or approaches it as silently and as slowly as a shadow, scanning
every leaf and twig with the certainty of discovering its would-be
slayer, no matter how carefully he may be concealed or how silent
and motionless he may be; a one-in-a-million chance of getting a
shot, and yet, who is there among us who would not take it?

The thicket into which the tigress had retired was roughly
forty yards square, and she could not leave it without the
monkey seeing her and warning us, so we sat down back to
back, to have a smoke and listen if the jungle had anything
further to tell us while we considered our next move.

he seroii:! largest of the group of tigers passing within
leu feel of I he tainera

Tin 1 largest of (lit- I igers lifiitig OIK* end of the kill -
an old cart buifulo~-prcparutory to tarrying it away

EXAMPLES OF CINF. I'HOltHiRAlMJV

See p.

Five tigers watching while (he sixth descends on the kill

The white tigress si/ ing up a new arrival

EXAMPLES OF CINE-PHOTOGRAPHY

The Thak Man-eater 177

To make a machan it was necessary to return to the village,
and during our absence the tigress was almost certain to cany
away the kill. It had been difficult when she was carrying a
whole human being to track her, but now, when her burden was
considerably lighter and she had been disturbed, she would
probably go for miles and we might never find her kill again,
so it was necessary for one of us to remain on the spot, while
the other two went back to the village for ropes.

Ibbotson, with his usual disregard for danger, elected to go
back, and while he and Tewari went down the hill to avoid the
difficult ground we had recently come over, I stepped up on to a
small tree close to the kill. Four feet above ground the tree divid-
ed in two, and by leaning on one half and putting my feet against
the other, I was able to maintain a precarious seat which was
high enough off the ground to enable me to see the tigress if she
approached the kill, and also high enough, if she had any designs
on me, to see her before she got to within striking distance.

Ibbotson had been gone fifteen or twenty minutes when I
heard a rock tilt forward, and then back. The rock was evident-
ly very delicately poised, and when the tigress had put her
weight on it and felt it tilt forward she had removed her foot
and let the rock fall back into place. The sound had come
from about twenty yards to my left front, the only direction in
which it would have been possible for me to have fired without
being knocked out of the tree.

Minutes passed, each pulling my hopes down a little lower
from the heights to which they had soared, and then, when
tension on my nerves and the weight of the heavy rifle were
becoming unbearable, I heard a stick snap at the upper end of
the thicket. Here was an example of how a tiger can move
through the jungle. From the sound she had made I knew her
exact position, had kept my eyes fixed on the spot, and yet she
had come, seen me, stayed some time watching me, and then gone
away without my having seen a leaf or a blade of grass move.

'3

178 Man-eaters of Kumaon

When tension on nerves is suddenly relaxed cramped and
aching muscles call loudly for ease, and though in this case it
only meant the lowering of the rifle on to my knees to take the
strain off my shoulders and arms, the movement, small though
it was, sent a comforting feeling through the whole of my body.
No further sound came from the tigress, and an hour or two
later I heard Ibbotson returning.

Of all the men I have been on shikar with Ibbotson is by far
and away the best, for not only has he the heart of a lion, but
he thinks of everything, and with it all is the most unselfish man
that carries a gun. He had gone to fetch a rope and he returned
with rugs, cushions, more hot tea than even I could drink and
an ample lunch; and while I sat on the windward side of the
kill to refresh myself , Ibbotson put a man in a tree forty yards
away to distract the tigress's attention, and climbed into a tree
overlooking the kill to make a rope machan.

When the machan was ready Ibbotson moved the kill a few
feet a very unpleasant job and tied it securely to the foot of a
sapling to prevent the tigress carrying it away, for the moon
was on the wane and the first two hours of the night at this
heavily wooded spot would be pitch dark. After a final smoke
I climbed on to the machan, and when I had made myself
comfortable Ibbotson recovered the man who was making a
diversion and set off in the direction of Thak to pick up Mrs
Ibbotson and return to camp at Sem.

The retreating party were out of sight but were not yet out
of sound when I heard a heavy body brushing against leaves,
and at the same moment the monkey, which had been silent all
this time and which I could now see sitting in a tree on the far
side of the blackberry thicket, started calling. Here was more
luck than I hoped for, and our ruse of putting a man up a tree
to cause a diversion appeared to be working as successfully as
it had done on a previous occasion. A tense minute passed,
a second, and a third, and then from the ridge where I had

The Thak Man-eater 179

climbed on to the big slab of rock a kakar came dashing down
towards me, barking hysterically. The tigress was not coming
to the kill but had gone off after Ibbotson. I was now in a
fever of anxiety, for it was quite evident that she had aban-
doned her kill and gone to try to secure another victim.

Before leaving Ibbotson had promised to take every pre-
caution but on hearing the kakar barking on my side of the
ridge he would naturally assume the tigress was moving in the
vicinity of the kill, and if he relaxed his precautions the tigress
would get her chance. Ten very uneasy minutes for me passed,
and then I heard a second kakar barking in the direction of
Thak; the tigress was still following, but the ground there was
more open, and there was less fear of her attacking the party.
The danger to the Ibbotsons was, ( however, not over by any
means for they had to go through two miles of very heavy jun-
gle to reach camp; and if they stayed at Thak until sundown
listening for my shot, which I feared they would do and which
as a matter of fact they did do, they would run a very grave
risk on the way down. Ibbotson fortunately realized t the danger
and kept his party close together, and though the tigress fol-
lowed them the whole way as her pug marks the following
morning showed they got back to camp safely.

The calling of kakar and sambur enabled me to follow the
movements of the tigress. An hour after sunset she was down
at the bottom of the valley two miles away. She had the whole
night before her, and though there was only one chance in a
million of her returning to the kill I determined not to lose that
chance. Wrapping a rug round me, for it was a bitterly cold
night, I made myself comfortable in a position in which I could
remain for hours without movement,

I had taken my seat on the machan at 4 p.m., and at 10 p.m.
I heard two animals coming down the hill towards me. It was
too dark under the trees to see them, but when they got to the
lee of the kill I knew they were porcupines. Rattling their

180 Man-eaters of Kumaon

quills, and making the peculiar booming noise that only a porcu-
pine can make, they approached the kill and, after walking
round it several times, continued on their way. An hour later,
and when the moon had been up some time, I heard an animal
in the valley below. It was moving from east to west, and when
it came into the wind blowing downhill from the kill it made a
long pause, and then came cautiously up the hill. While it was
still some distance away I heard it snuffing the air, and knew
it to be a bear. The smell of blood was attracting him, but
mingled with it was the less welcome smell of a human being,
and taking no chances he was very carefully stalking the kill.
His nose, the keenest of any animal's in the jungle, had
apprised him while he was still in the valley that the kill was
the property of a tiger. This to a Himalayan bear who fears
nothing, and who will, as I have on several occasions seen, drive
a tiger away from its kill, was no deterrent, but what was, and
what was causing him uneasiness, was the smell of a human
being mingled with the smell of blood and tiger.

On reaching the flat ground the bear sat down on his haunches
a few yards from the kill, and when he had satisfied himself that
the hated human smell held no danger for him he stood erect and
turning his he'ad sent a long-drawn-out cry, which I interpreted
as a call to a mate, echoing down into the valley. Then without
any further hesitation he walked boldly up to the kill, and as he
nosed it I aligned the sights of my rifle on him. I know of only
one instance of a Himalayan bear eating a human being; on
that occasion a woman cutting grass had fallen down a cliff and
been killed, and a' bear finding the mangled body had carried it
away and had eaten it. This bear, however, on whose shoulder
my sights were aligned, appeared to draw the line at human
flesh, and after looking at and smelling the kill continued his in-
terrupted course to the west. When the sounds of his retreat died
away in the distance the jungle settled down to silence until in-
terrupted! a little after sunrise, by Ibbotson's very welcome arrival.

The Thak Man-eater 181

With Ibbotson came the brother and other relatives of the
dead man, who very reverently wrapped the remains in a clean
white cloth and, laying it on a cradle made of two saplings and
rope which Ibbotson provided, set off for the burning ghat on
the banks of the Sarda, repeating under their breath as they
went the Hindu hymn of praise 'Ram nam sat hai' with its
refrain, ' Satya bol gat hai'.

Fourteen hours in the cold had not been without its effect
on me, but after partaking of the hot drink and food Ibbotson
had brought, I felt none the worse for my long vigil.

II

After following the Ibbotsons down to Chuka on the evening
of the ayth the tigress, some time during the night, crossed the
Ladhya into the scrub jungle at the back of our camp. Through
this scrub ran a path that had been regularly used by the villag-
ers of the Ladhya valley until the advent of the man-eater had
rendered its passage unsafe. On the 28th the two mail-runners
who carried Ibbotson's dak on its first stage to T^jiakpur got
delayed in camp and to save time took, or more correctly started
to take, a short cut through this scrub. Very fortunately the
leading man was on the alert and saw the tigress as she crept
through the scrub and lay down near the path ahead of them.

Ibbotson and I had just got back from Thak when these two
men dashed into camp, and taking our rifles we hurried off to
investigate. We found the pug marks of the tigress where she had
come out on the path and followed the men for a short distance,
but we did not see her though in one place where the scrub was
very dense we saw a movement and heard an animal moving off.

On the morning of the 2Qth, a party of men came down from
Thak to report that one of their bullocks had not returned to
the cattle-shed the previous night, and on a search being made
where it had last been seen a little blood had been found. At
2 p.m. the Ibbotsons and I were at this spot, and a glance at the

182 Man-eaters of Kumaon

ground satisfied us that the bullock had been killed and carried
away by a tiger. After a hasty lunch Ibbotson and I, with two
men following carrying ropes for a machan, set out along the
drag. It went diagonally across the face of the hill for a hundred
yards and then straight down into the ravine in which I had
fired at and missed the big tiger in April. A few hundred yards
down this ravine the bullock, which was an enormous animal,
had got fixed between two rocks and, not being able to move
it, the tiger had eaten a meal off its hind quarters and left it.

The pug marks of the tiger, owing to the great weight she
was carrying, were splayed out and it was not possible to say
whether she was the man-eater or not; but as every tiger in this
area was suspect I decided to sit up over the kill. There was
only one tree within reasonable distance of the kill, and as the
men climbed into it to make a machan the tiger started calling
in the valley below. Very hurriedly a few strands of rope were
tied between two branches, and while Ibbotson stood on guard
with his rifle I climbed the tree and took my seat on what, during
the next fourteen hours, proved to be the most uncomfortable
as well as the most dangerous machan I have ever sat on. The
tree was leaning away from the hill, and from the three uneven
strands of rope I was sitting on there was a drop of over a
hundred feet into the rocky ravine below.

The tiger called several times as I was getting into the tree
and continued to call at longer intervals late into the evening,
the last call coming from a ridge half a mile away. It was now
quite evident that the tiger had been lying up close to the kill
and had seen the men climbing into the tree. Knowing from
past experience what this meant, she had duly expressed resent-
ment at being disturbed and then gone away, for though I sat
on the three strands of rope until Ibbotson returned next morn-
ing I did not see or hear anything throughout the night.

Vultures were not likely to find the kill, for the ravine was
deep and overshadowed by trees, and as the bullock was large

The Thak Man-eater 183

enough to provide the tiger with several meals we decided not
to sit up over it again where it was now lying, hoping the tiger
would remove it to some more convenient place where we should
have a better chance of getting a shot. In this however we were
disappointed, for the tiger did not again return to the kill.

Two nights later the buffalo we had tied out behind our camp
at Sera was killed, and through a little want of observation on
my part a great opportunity of bagging the man-eater was lost.

The men who brought in the news of this kill reported that
the rope securing the animal had been broken, and that the kill
had been carried away up the ravine at the lower end of which
it had been tied. This was the same ravine in which MacDonald
and I had chased a tigress in April, and as on that occasion she
had taken her kill some distance up the ravine I now very
foolishly concluded she had done the same with this kill.

After breakfast Ibbotson and I went out to find the kill and
see what prospect there was for an evening sit-up.

The ravine in which the buffalo had been killed was about
fifty yards wide and ran deep into the foot-hills. For two hundred
yards the ravine was straight and then bent round to the left.
Just beyond the bend, and on the left-hand side of it, there was
a dense patch of young saplings backed by a hundred-foot ridge
on which thick grass was growing. In the ravine, and close to
the saplings, there was a small pool of water. I had been up the
ravine several times in April and had failed to mark the patch
of saplings as being a likely place for a tiger to lie up in, and did
not take the precautions I should have taken when rounding the
bend, with the result that the tigress who was drinking at the
pool saw us first. There was only one safe line of retreat for
her and she took it. This was straight up the steep hill, over
the ridge, and into the sal forest beyond.

The hill was too steep for us to climb, so we continued on
up the ravine to where a sambur track crossed it, and following
this track we gained the ridge. The tigress was now in a

184 Man-eaters of Kumaon

triangular patch of jungle bounded by the ridge, the Ladhya,
and a cliff down which no animal could go. The area was not
large, and there were several deer in it which from time to time
advised us of the position of the tigress, but unfortunately the
ground was cut up by a number of deep and narrow rain-water
channels in which we eventually lost touch with her.

We had not yet seen the kill, so we re-entered the ravine by
the sambur track and found the kill hidden among the saplings.
These saplings were from six inches to a foot in girth, and were
not strong enough to support a machan, so we had to abandon
the idea of a machan. With the help of a crowbar a rock could
possibly have been prised from the face of the hill and a place
made in which to sit, but this was not advisable when dealing
with a man-eater.

Reluctant to give up the chance of a shot we considered the
possibility of concealing ourselves in the grass near the kill, in
the hope that the tigress would return before dark and that we
should see her before she saw us. There were two objections to
this plan: (a) if we did not get a shot and the tigress saw us
near her kill she might abandon it as she had done her other two
kills and (6) between the kill and camp there was very heavy
scrub jungle, and if we tried to go through this jungle in the
dark the tigress would have us at her mercy. So very reluctantly
we decided to leave the kill to the tigress for that night, and
hope for the best on the morrow.

On our return next morning we found that the tigress had
carried away the kill. For three hundred yards she had gone
up the bed of the ravine, stepping from rock to rock, and leaving
no drag marks. At this spot three hundred yards from where
she had picked up the kill we were at fault, for though there
were a number of tracks on a wet patch of ground, none of
them had been made while she was carrying the kill. Eventually,
after casting round in circles, we found where she had left the
ravine and gone up the hill on the left.

The Thak Man-eater 185

This hill up which the tigress had taken her kill was over-
grown with ferns and goldenrod and tracking was not difficult,
but the going was, for the hill was very steep and in places a
detour had to be made and the track picked up further on.
After a stiff climb of a thousand feet we came to a small plateau,
bordered on the left by a cliff a mile wide. On the side of the
plateau nearest the cliff the ground was seamed and cracked,
and in these cracks a dense growth of sal, two to six feet in
height, had sprung up. The tigress had taken her kill into this
dense cover and it was not until we actually trod on it that we
were aware of its position.

As we stopped to look at all that remained of the buffalo there
was a low growl to our right. With rifles raised we waited for a
minute and then, hearing a movement in the undergrowth a little
beyond where the growl had come from, we pushed our way
through the young sal for ten yards and came on a small clear-
ing, where the tigress had made herself a bed on some soft grass.
On the far side of this grass the hill sloped upwards for twenty
yards to another plateau, and it was from this slope that the
sound we had heard had come. Proceeding up the slope as
silently as possible we had just reached the flat ground, which
was about fifty yards wide, when the tigress left the far side and
went down into the ravine, disturbing some kaleege pheasants
and a kakar as she did so. To have followed her would have been
useless, so we went back to the kill and, as there was still a good
meal on it, we selected two trees to sit in, and returned to camp.

After an early lunch we went back to the kill and, hampered
with our rifles, climbed with some difficulty into the trees we had
selected. We sat up for five hours without seeing or hearing
anything. At dusk we climbed down from our trees, and
stumbling over the cracked and uneven ground eventually
reached the ravine when it was quite dark. Both of us had an
uneasy feeling that we were being followed, but by keeping close
together we reached camp without incident at 9 p.m.

186 Man-eaters of Kumaon

The Ibbotsons had now stayed at Sem as long as it was pos-
sible for them to do so, and early next morning they set out on
their twelve days' walk to keep their appointment at Askot.
Before leaving, Ibbotson extracted a promise from me that I
would not follow up any kills alone, or further endanger my life
by prolonging my stay at Sem for more than a day or two.

After the departure of the Ibbotsons and their fifty men, the
camp, which was surrounded by dense scrub, was reduced to
my two servants and myself my coolies were living in a room
in the Headman's house so throughout the day I set all hands
to collecting driftwood, of which there was an inexhaustible
supply at the junction, to keep a fire going all night. The fire
would not scare away the tigress but it would enable us to see
her if she prowled round our tents at night, and anyway the
nights were setting in cold and there was ample excuse, if one
were needed, for keeping a big fire going all night.

Towards evening, when my men were safely back in camp,
I took a rifle and went up the Ladhya to see if the tigress Iiad
crossed the river. I found several tracks in the sand, but no
fresh ones, and at dusk I returned, convinced that the tigress
was still on our side of the river. An hour later, when it was
quite dark, a kakar started barking close to our tents and barked
persistently for half an hour.

My men had taken over the job of tying out the buffaloes,
a task which Ibbotson's men had hitherto performed, and next
morning I accompanied them when they went out to bring in
the buffaloes. Though we covered several miles I did not find
any trace of the tigress. After breakfast I took a rod and went
down to the junction, and had one of the best day's fishing I
have ever had. The junction was full of big fish, and though
my light tackle was broken frequently I killed sufficient mahseer
to feed the camp.

Again, as on the previous evening, I crossed the Ladhya, with
the intention of taking up a position on a rock overlooking the

The Thak Man-eater 187

open ground on the right bank of the river and watching for the
tigress to cross. As I got away from the roar of the water at
the junction I heard a sambur and a monkey calling on the hill
to my left, and as I neared the rock I came on the fresh tracks
of the tigress. Following them back I found the stones still wet
where she had forded the river. A few minutes' delay in camp
to dry my fishing line and have a cup of tea cost a man his
life, several thousand men weeks of anxiety, and myself many
days of strain, for though I stayed at Sem for another three
days I did not get another chance of shooting the tigress.

On the morning of the yth, as I was breaking camp and
preparing to start on my twenty-mile walk to Tanakpur, a big
contingent of men from all the surrounding villages arrived, and
begged me not to leave them to the tender mercies of the man-
eater. Giving them what advice it was possible to give people
situated as they were, I promised to return as soon as it was
possible for me to do so.

I caught the train at Tanakpur next morning and arrived back
in Naini Tal on 9 November, having been away nearly a month.

in

I left Sem on the 7th of November and on the I2th the tigress
killed a man at Thak. I received news of this kill through the
Divisional Forest Officer, Haidwani, shortly after we had moved
down to our winter home at the foot of the hills, and by doing
forced marches I arrived at Chuka a little after sunrise on
the 24th.

It had been my intention to breakfast at Chuka and then go
on to Thak and make that village my headquarters, but the
Headman of Thak, whom I found installed at Chuka, informed
me that every man, woman, and child had left Thak immediately
after the man had been killed on the 12th, and added that if I
carried out my intention of camping at Thak I might be able to
safeguard my own life, but it would not be possible to safeguard

188 Man-eaters of Kumaon

the lives of my men. This was quite reasonable, and while
waiting for my men to arrive, the Headman helped me to select
a site for my camp at Chuka where my men would be reasonably
safe and I should have some privacy from the thousands of men
who were now arriving to fell the forest.

On receipt of the Divisional Forest Officer's telegram
acquainting me of the kill, I had telegraphed to the Tahsildar at
Tanakpur to send three young male buffaloes to Chuka. My
request had been promptly complied with and the three animals
had arrived the previous evening.

After breakfast I took one of the buffaloes and set out for
Thak, intending to tie it up on the spot where the man had
been killed on the I2th. The Headman had given me a very
graphic account of the events of that date, for he himself had
nearly fallen a victim to the tigress. It appeared that towards
the afternoon, accompanied by his granddaughter, a girl ten
years of age, he had gone to dig up ginger tubers in a field some
sixty yards from his house. This field is about half an acre in
extent and is surrounded on three sides by jungle, and being on
the slope of a fairly steep hill it is visible from the Headman's
house. After the old man and his granddaughter had been at
work for some time his wife, who was husking rice in the court-
yard of the house, called out in a very agitated voice and asked
him if he was deaf that he could not hear the pheasants and
other birds that were chattering in the jungle above him. Fortu-
nately for him, he acted promptly. Dropping his hoe, he grabbed
the child's hand and together they ran back to the house, urged
on by the woman who said she could now see a red animal in
the bushes at the upper end of the field. Half an hour later the
tigress killed a man who was lopping branches off a tree in a
field three hundred yards from the Headman's house.

From the description I had received from the Headman I
had no difficulty in locating the tree. It was a small gnarled
tree growing out of a three-foot-high bank between two terraced

The Thak Man-eater 189

fields, and had been lopped year after year for cattle fodder.
The man who had been killed was standing on the trunk holding
one branch and cutting another, when the tigress came up from
behind, tore his hold from the branch and, after killing him,
carried him away into the dense brushwood bordering the fields.
Thak village was a gift from the Chand Rajas, who ruled
Kumaon for many hundreds of years before the Gurkha occupa-
tion, to the forefathers of the present owners in return for their
services at the Punagiri temples. (The promise made by the
Chand Rajas that the lands of Thak and two other villages
would remain rent-free for all time has been honoured by the
British Government for a hundred years.) From a collection of
grass huts the village has in the course of time grown into a
very prosperous settlement with masonry houses roofed with
slate tiles, for not only is the land very fertile, but the revenue
from the temples is considerable.

Like all other villages in Kumaon, Thak during its hundreds
of years of existence has passed through many vicissitudes, but
never before in its long history had it been deserted as it now
was. On my previous visits I had found it a hive of industry,
but when I went up to it this afternoon, taking the young
buffalo with me, silence reigned over it. Every one of the hun-
dred or more inhabitants had fled taking their livestock with
them the only animal I saw in the village was a cat, which gave
me a warm welcome; so hurried had the evacuation been that
many of the doors of the houses had been left wide open. On
every path in the village, in the courtyard of the houses and in
the dust before all the doors I found the tigress's pug marks.
The open doorways were a menace, for the path as it wound
through the village passed close to them, and in any of the
houses the tigress might have been lurking.

On the hill thirty yards above the village were several cattle
shelters, and in the vicinity of these shelters I saw more kaleege
pheasants, red jungle fowl and white-capped babblers than I

190 Man-eaters of Kumaon

have ever before seen, and from the confiding way in which
they permitted me to walk among them it is quite evident that
the people of Thak have a religious prejudice against the taking
of life.

From the terraced fields above the cattle shelters a bird's-eye
view of the village is obtained, and it was not difficult, from the
description the Headman had given me, to locate the tree where
the tigress had secured her last victim. In the soft earth under
the tree there were signs of a struggle and a few clots of dried
blood. From here the tigress had carried her kill a hundred
yards over a ploughed field, through a stout hedge, and into the
dense brushwood beyond. The foot-prints from the village, and
back the way they had come, showed that the entire population
of the village had visited the scene of the kill, but from the tree
to the hedge there was only one track, the track the tigress had
made when carrying away her victim. No attempt had been
made to follow her up and recover the body.

Scraping away a little earth from under the tree I exposed a
root and to this root I tied my buffalo, bedding it down with a
liberal supply of straw taken from a nearby haystack.

The village, which is on the north face of the hill, was now
in shadow, and if I was to get back to camp before dark it was
time for me to make a start. Skirting round the village to
avoid the menace of the open doorways, I joined the path
below the houses.

This path after it leaves the village passes under a giant
mango tree from the roots of which issues a cold spring of clear
water. After running along a groove cut in a massive slab of
rock, this water falls into a rough masonry trough, from where
it spreads onto the surrounding ground, rendering it soft and
slushy. I had drunk at the spring on my way up, leaving my
foot-prints in this slushy ground, and on approaching the spring
now for a second drink, I found the tigress's pug marks superim-
posed on my foot-prints. After quenching her thirst the tigress

The Thak Man-eater 191

had avoided the path and had gained the village by climbing a
steep bank overgrown with strobilanthes and nettles, and taking
up a position in the shelter of one of the houses had possibly
watched me while I was tying up the buffalo, expecting me to
return the way I had gone; it was fortunate for me that I had
noted the danger of passing those open doorways a second time,
and had taken the longer way round.

When coming up from Chuka I had taken every precaution
to guard against a sudden attack, and it was well that I had
done so, for I now found from her pug marks that the tigress
had followed me all the way up from my camp, and next morn-
ing when I went back to Thak I found she had followed me
from where I had joined the path below the houses, right down
to the cultivated land at Chuka.

Reading with the illumination I had brought with me was
not possible, so after dinner that night, while sitting near a
fire which was as welcome for its warmth as it was for the
feeling of security it gave me, I reviewed the whole situation
and tried to think out some plan by which it would be possible
to circumvent the tigress.

When leaving home on the 22nd I had promised that I would
return in ten days, and that this would be my last expedition
after man-eaters. Years of exposure and strain and long absences
from home extending as in the case of the Chowgarh tigress
and the Rudraprayag leopard to several months on end were
beginning to tell as much on my constitution as on the nerves
of those at home, and if by the 30th of November I had not
succeeded in killing this man-eater, others would have to be
found who were willing to take on the task.

It was now the night of the 24th, so I had six clear days
before me. Judging from the behaviour of the tigress that even-
ing she appeared to be anxious to secure another human victim,
and it should not therefore be difficult for me, in the time at my
disposal, to get in touch with her. There were several methods

192 Man-eaters of Kumaon

by which this could be accomplished, and each would be tried
in turn. The method that offers the greatest chance of success
of shooting a tiger in the hills is to sit up in a tree over a kill,
and if during that night the tigress did not kill the buffalo I
had tied up at Thak, I would the following night, and every
night thereafter, tie up the other two buffaloes in places I had
already selected, and failing to secure a human kill it was just
possible that the tigress might kill one of my buffaloes, as she
had done on a previous occasion when the Ibbotsons and I were
camped at Sem in April. After making up the fire with logs
that would burn all night, I turned in, and went to sleep listen-
ing to a kakar barking in the scrub jungle behind my tent.

While breakfast was being prepared the following morning I
picked up a rifle and went out to look for tracks on the stretch
of sand on the right bank of the river, between Chuka and Sem.
The path, after leaving the cultivated land, runs for a short
distance through scrub jungle, and here I found the tracks of a
big male leopard, possibly the same animal that had alarmed
the kakar jLhe previous night. A small male tiger had crossed
and recrossed the Ladhya many times during the past week, and
in the same period the man-eater had crossed only once, coming
from the direction of Sem. A big bear had traversed the sand
a little before my arrival, and when I got back to camp the
timber contractors complained that while distributing work that
morning they had run into a bear which had taken up a very
threatening attitude, in consequence of which their labour had
refused to work in the area in which the bear had been seen.

Several thousand men the contractors put the figure at five
thousand had now concentrated at Chuka and Kumaya Chak
to fell and saw up the timber and carry it down to the motor
road that was being constructed, and all the time this consider-
able labour force was working they shouted at the tops of their
voices to keep up their courage. The noise in the valley result-
ing from axe and saw, the crashing of giant trees down the steep

The Thak Man-eater 193

hillside, the breaking of rocks with sledge hammers, and com-
bined with it all the shouting of thousands of men, can better be
imagined than described. That there were many frequent alarms
in this nervous community was only natural, and during the
next few days I covered much ground and lost much valuable
time in investigating false rumours of attacks and kills by the
man-eater, for the dread of the tigress was not confined to the
Ladhya valley but extended right down the Sarda through
Kaldhunga to the gorge, an area of roughly fifty square miles in
which an additional ten thousand men were working.

That a single animal should terrorize a labour force of these
dimensions in addition to the residents of the surrounding vil-
lages and the hundreds of men who were bringing foodstuffs for
the labourers or passing through the valley with hill produce in
the way of oranges (purchasable at twelve annas a hundred),
walnuts, and chillies to the market at Tanakpur, is incredible,
and would be unbelievable were it not for the historical, and
nearly parallel, case of the man-eater of Tsavo, where a pair
of lions, operating only at night, held up work for Iqng periods
on the Uganda Railway.

To return to my story. Breakfast disposed of on the morning
of the 25th, I took a second buffalo and set out for Thak. The
path, after leaving the cultivated land at Chuka, skirts along
the foot of the hill for about half a mile before it divides. One
arm goes straight up a ridge to Thak and the other, after con-
tinuing along the foot of the hill for another half-mile, zigzags
up through Kumaya Chak to Kot Kindri.

At the divide I found the pug marks of the tigress and
followed them all the way back to Thak. The fact that she had
come down the hill after me the previous evening was proof
that she had not killed the buffalo. This, though very disap-
pointing, was not at all unusual; for tigers will on occasions visit
an animal that is tied up for several nights in succession before
they finally kill it, for tigers do not kill unless they are hungry.

194 Man-eaters of Kumaon

Leaving the second buffalo at the mango tree, where there
was an abundance of green grass, I skirted round the houses and
found No. i buffalo sleeping peacefully after a big feed and a
disturbed night. The tigress, coming from the direction of the
village as her pug marks showed, had approached to within a
few feet of the buffalo, and had then gone back the way she had
come. Taking the buffalo down to the spring I let it graze for
an hour or two, and then took it back and tied it up at the same
spot where it had been the previous night.

The second buffalo I tied up fifty yards from the mango tree
and at the spot where the wailing woman and villagers had met
us the day the Ibbotsons and I had gone up to investigate the
human kill. Here a ravine a few feet deep crossed the path, on
one side of which there was a dry stump, and on the other an
almond tree in which a machan could be made. I tied No. 2
buffalo to the stump, and bedded it down with sufficient hay to
keep it going for several days. There was nothing more to be
done at Thak so I returned to camp and, taking the third buffalo,
crossed the Ladhya and tied it up behind Sem, in the ravine
where the tigress had killed one of our buffaloes in April.

At my request the Tahsildar of Tanakpur had selected three
of the fattest young male buffaloes he could find. All three were
now tied up in places frequented by the tigress, and as I set out
to visit them on the morning of the 26th I had great hopes that
one of them had been killed and that I should get an opportunity
of shooting the tigress over it. Starting with the one across the
Ladhya, I visited all in turn and found that the tigress had not
touched any of them. Again, as on the previous morning, I
found her tracks on that path leading to Thak, but on this
occasion there was a double set of pug marks, one coming down
and the other going back. On both her journeys the tigress had
kept to the path and had passed within a few feet of the buffalo
that was tied to the stump, fifty yards from the mango tree.

On my return to Chuka a deputation of Thak villagers led

The Thak Man-eater 195

by the Headman came to my tent and requested me to accom-
pany them to the village to enable them to replenish their supply
of foodstuffs, so at midday, followed by the Headman and his
tenants, and by four of my own men carrying ropes for a machan
and food for me, I returned to Thak and mounted guard while
the men hurriedly collected the provisions they needed.

After watering and feeding the two buffaloes I retied No. 2
to the stump and took No. i half a mile down the hill and tied
it to a sapling on the side of the path. I then took the villagers
back to Chuka and returned a few hundred yards up the hill
for a scratch meal while my men were making the machan.

It was now quite evident that the tigress had no fancy for my
fat buffaloes, and as in three days I had seen her tracks five
times on the path leading to Thak, I decided to sit up over the
path and try to get a shot at her that way. To give me warning
of the tigress's approach I tied a goat with a bell round its neck
on the path, and at 4 p.m. I climbed into the tree. I told my men
to return at 8 a.m. the following morning, and began my watch.

At sunset a cold wind started blowing and while I was
attempting to pull a coat over my shoulders the ropes on one
side of the machan slipped, rendering my seat very uncomfort-
able. An hour later a "storm came on, and though it did not rain
for long it wet me to the skin, greatly adding to my discomfort.
During the sixteen hours I sat in the tree I did not see or hear
anything. The men turned up at 8 a.m. I returned to camp
for a hot bath and a good meal, and then, accompanied by six
of my men, set out for Thak.

The overnight rain had washed all the old tracks off the path,
and two hundred yards above the tree I had sat in I found the
fresh pug marks of the tigress, where she had come out of the
jungle and gone up the path in the direction of Thak. Very
cautiously I stalked the first buffalo, only to find it lying asleep
on the path; the tigress had skirted round it, rejoined the path
a few yards further on and continued up the hill. Following on
14

196 Man-eaters of Kumaon

her tracks I approached the second buffalo, and as I got near
the place where it had been tied two blue Himalayan magpies
rose off the ground and went screaming down the hill.

The presence of these birds indicated (a) that the buffalo was
dead, (b) that it had been partly eaten and not carried away,
and (c) that the tigress was not in the close vicinity.

On arrival at the stump to which it had been tied I saw that
the buffalo had been dragged off the path and partly eaten, and
on examining the animal I found that it had not been killed by
the tigress but that it had in all probability died of snake-bite
(there were many hamadryads in the surrounding jungles), and
that, finding it lying dead on the path, the tigress had eaten a
meal off it and had then tried to drag it away. When she
found she could not break the rope, she had partly covered the
kill over with dry leaves and brush-wood and continued on her
way up to Thak.

Tigers as a rule are not carrion eaters but they do on occasions
eat animals they themselves have not killed. For instance, on
one occasion I left the carcass of a leopard on a fire track and,
when I returned next morning to recover a knife I had for-
gotten, I found that a tiger had removed the carcass to a dis-
tance of a hundred yards and eaten two-thirds of it.

On my way up from Chuka I had dismantled the machan I
had sat on the previous night, and while two of my men climbed
into the almond tree to make a seat for me the tree was not
big enough for a machan the other four went to the spring