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THE CHAMPAWAT MAN-EATER

I WAS shooting with Eddie Knowles in Malani when I first
heard of the tiger which later received official recognition
as the ' Champawat man-eater ' .

Eddie, who will long be remembered in this province as a
sportsman par excellence and the possessor of an inexhaustible
fund of shikar yarns, was one of those few, and very fortunate,
individuals who possess the best of everything in life. His
rifle was without equal in accuracy and striking power, and while
one of his brothers was the best gun shot in India, another
brother was the best tennis player in the Indian Army. When
therefore Eddie informed me that his brother-in-law, the best
shikari in the world, had been deputed by Government to shoot
the Champawat man-eater, it was safe to assume that a very
definite period had been put to the animal's activities.

The tiger, however, for some inexplicable reason, did not
die, and was causing Government a great deal of anxiety when
I visited Naini Tal four years later. Rewards were offered,
special shikaris employed, and parties of Gurkhas sent out from
the depot in Almora. Yet in spite of these measures, the toll
of human victims continued to mount alarmingly.

The tigress, for such the animal turned out to be, had arrived
in Kumaon as a full-fledged man-eater, from Nepal, from
whence she had been driven out by a body of armed Nepalese
after she had killed two hundred human beings, and during the
four years she had been operating in Kumaon had added two
hundred and thirty-four to this number.

This is how matters stood, when shortly after my arrival
in Naini Tal I received a visit from Berthoud. Berthoud, who
was Deputy Commissioner of Naini Tal at that time, and who
after his tragic death now lies buried in an obscure grave in
Haldwani, was a man who was loved and respected by all who
2

2 Man-eaters of Kumaon

knew him, and it is not surprising therefore that when he told
me of the trouble the man-eater was giving the people of his
district, and the anxiety it was causing him, he took my promise
with him that I would start for Champawat immediately on
receipt of news of the next human kill.

Two conditions I made, however: one that the Government
rewards be cancelled, and the other, that the special shikaris,
and regulars from Almora, be withdrawn. My reasons for
making these conditions need no explanation for I am sure
all sportsmen share my aversion to being classed as a reward-
hunter and are as anxious as I am to avoid the risk of being
accidentally shot. These conditions were agreed to, and a week
later Berthoud paid me an early morning visit and informed
me that news had been brought in during the night by runners
that a woman had been killed by the man-eater at Pali, a village
between Dabidhura and Dhunaghat.

In anticipation of a start at short notice, I had engaged six
men to carry my camp kit, and leaving after breakfast, we did
a march the first day of seventeen miles to Dhari. Breakfasting
at Mornaula next morning, we spent the night at Dabidhura,
and arrived at Pali the following evening, five days after the
woman had been killed.

The people of the village, numbering some fifty men, women
and children, weire in a state of abject terror, and though the
sun was still up when I arrived I found the entire population
inside their homes behind locked doors, and it was not until
my men had made a fire in the courtyard and I was sitting
down to a cup of tea that a door here and there was cautiously
opened, and the frightened inmates emerged.

I was informed that for five days no one had gone beyond
their own doorsteps the insanitary condition of the courtyard
testified to the truth of this Statement that food was running
short, and that the people would starve if the tiger was not
killed or driven away.

The Champawat Man-eater J

That the tiger was still in the vicinity was apparent. For
three nights it had been heard calling on the road, distant a
hundred yards from the houses, and that veiy day it had been
seen on the cultivated land at the lower end of the village.

The Headman of the village very willingly placed a room
at my disposal, but as there were eight of us to share it, and
the only door it possessed opened on to the insanitary court-
yard, I elected to spend the night in the open.

After a scratch meal which had to do duty for dinner, I saw
my men safely shut into the room and myself took up a position
on the side of the road, with my back to a tree. The villagers
said the tiger was in the habit of perambulating along this
road, and as the moon was at the full I thought there was a
chance of my getting a shot provided I saw it first.

I had spent many nights in the jungle looking for game, but
this was the first time I had ever spent a night looking for a
man-eater. The length of road immediately in front of me
was brilliantly lit by the moon, but to right and left the over-
hanging trees cast dark shadows, and when the night wind agi-
tated the branches and the shadows moved, I saw a dozen tigers
advancing on me, and bitterly regretted the impulse that had
induced me to place myself at the man-eater's mercy. I lacked
the courage to return to the village and admit I was too fright-
ened to carry out my self-imposed task, and with teeth chatter-
ing, as much from fear as from cold, I sat out the long night.
As the grey dawn was lighting up the snowy range which I
was facing, I rested my head on my drawn-up knees, and it
was in this position my men an hour later found me fast
asleep; of the tiger I had neither heard nor seen anything.

Back in the village I tried to get the men who I could see
were very surprised I had survived the night to take me to
the places where the people of the village had from time to time
been killed, but this they were unwilling to do. From the
courtyard they pointed out the direction in which the kills had

4 Man-eaters of Kurnaon

taken place; the last kill the one that had brought me to the
spot I was told, had taken place round the shoulder of the
hill to the west of the village. The women and girls, some
twenty in number, who had been out collecting oak leaves for
the cattle when the unfortunate woman had been killed, were
eager to give me details of the occurrence. It appeared that
the party had set out two hours before midday and, after going
half a mile, had climbed into trees to cut leaves. The victim
and two other women had selected a tree growing on the edge
of a ravine, which I subsequently found was about four feet
deep and ten to twelve feet wide. Having cut all the leaves
she needed, the woman was climbing down from the tree when
the tiger, who had approached unseen, stood up on its hind
legs and caught her by the foot. Her hold was torn from the
branch she was letting herself down by, and, pulling her into
the ravine, the tiger released her foot, and while she was
struggling to rise caught her by the throat. After killing her
it sprang up the side of the ravine and disappeared with her
into some heavy undergrowth.

All this had taken place a few feet from the two women on
the tree, and had been witnessed by the entire party. As soon
as the tiger and its victim were out of sight, the terror-stricken
women and girls ran back to the village. The men had just
come in for their midday meal and, when all were assembled
and armed with drums, metal cooking-pots anything in fact
that would produce a noise the rescue party set off, the men
leading and the women bringing up the rear.

Arrived at the ravine in which the woman had been killed,
the very important question of ' what next? * was being debated
when the tiger interrupted the proceedings by emitting a loud
roar from the bushes thirty yards away. As one man the party
turned and fled helter-skelter back to the village. When breath
had been regained, accusations were made against one and
another of having been the first to run and cause the stampede.

The Chartipawat Man-eater $

Words ran high until it was suggested that if no one was
afraid and all were as brave as they claimed to be, why not go
back and rescue the woman without loss of more time? The
suggestion was adopted, and three times the party got as far
as the ravine. On the third occasion the one man who was
armed with a gun fired it off, and brought the tiger roaring
out of the bushes; after this the attempted rescue was very wisely
abandoned. On my asking the gun man why he had not dis-
charged his piece into the bushes instead of up into the air,
he said the tiger was already greatly enraged and that if by any
mischance he had hit it, it would undoubtedly have killed him.

For three hours that morning I walked round the village
looking for tracks and hoping, and at the same time dreading,
to meet the tiger. At one place in a dark heavily-wooded
ravine, while I was skirting some bushes, a covey of kaleege
pheasants fluttered screaming out of them, and I thought my
heart had stopped beating for good.

My men had cleared a spot under a walnut tree for my
meals, and after breakfast the Headman of the village asked
me to mount guard while the wheat crop was being cut. He
said that if the crop was not harvested in my presence, it would
not be harvested at all, for the people were too frightened to
leave their homes. Half an hour later the entire population of
the village, assisted by my men, were hard at work while I
stood on guard with a loaded rifle. By evening the crop from
five large fields had been gathered, leaving only two small
patches close to the houses, which the Headman said he would
have no difficulty in dealing with the next day.

The sanitary condition of the village had been much im-
proved, and a second room for my exclusive use placed at my
disposal; and that night, with thorn bushes securely wedged
in the doorway to admit ventilation and exclude the man-eater,
I made up for the sleep I had lost the previous night.

My presence was beginning to put new heart into the people

Man-eaters of Kumaon

and they were moving about more freely, but I had not yet
gained sufficient of their confidence to renew my request of
being shown round the jungle, to which I attached some im-
portance. These people knew every foot of the ground for
miles round, and could, if they wished, show me where I was
most likely to find the tiger, or in any case, where I could see
its pug marks. That the man-eater was a tiger was an estab-
lished fact, but it was not known whether the animal was
young or old, a male or a female, and this information, which
I believed would help me to get in touch with it, I could only
ascertain by examining its pug marks.

After an early tea that morning I announced that I wanted
meat for my men and asked the villagers if they could direct
me to where I could shoot a ghooral (mountain goat). The
village was situated on the top of a long ridge running east and
west, and just below the road on which I had spent the night
the hill fell steeply away to the north in a series of grassy slopes;
on these slopes I was told ghooral were plentiful, and several
men volunteered to show me over the ground. I was careful
not to show my pleasure at this offer and, selecting three men,
I set out, telling the Headman that if I found the ghooral as
plentiful as he said they were, I would shoot two for the village
in addition to shooting one for my men.

Crossing the road we went down a very steep ridge, keeping
a sharp lookout to right and left, but saw nothing. Half a mile
down the hill the ravines converged, and from their junction
there was a good view of the rocky, and grass-covered, slope to
the right. I had been sitting for some minutes, scanning the
slope, with my back to a solitary pine which grew at this spot,
when a movement high up on the hill caught my eye. When
the movement was repeated I saw it was a ghooral flapping its
ears; the animal was standing in grass and only its head was
visible. The men had not seen the movement, and as the head
was now stationary and blended in with its surroundings it

The Champawat Man-eater

was not possible to point it out to them. Giving them a general
idea of the animal's position I made them sit down and watch
while I took a shot. I was armed with an old Martini Henry
rifle, a weapon that atoned for its vicious kick by being dead
accurate up to any range. The distance was as near 200 yards
as made no matter and, lying down and resting the rifle on a
convenient pine root, I took careful aim, and fired.

The smoke from the black powder cartridge obscured my
view and the men said nothing had happened and that I had
probably fired at a rock, or a bunch of dead leaves. Retaining
my position I reloaded the rifle and presently saw the grass, a
little below where I had fired, moving, and the hind quarters
of the ghooral appeared. When the whole animal was free of
the grass it started to roll over and over, gaming momentum as
it came down the steep hill. When' it was half-way down it
disappeared into heavy grass, and disturbed two ghooral that
had been lying up there. Sneezing their alarm call, the two
animals dashed out of the grass and went bounding up the
hill. The range was shorter now, and, adjusting the leaf sight,
I waited until the bigger of the two slowed down and put a
bullet through its back, and as the other one turned, and made
off diagonally across the hill, I shot it through the shoulder.

On occasions one is privileged to accomplish the seemingly
impossible. Lying in an uncomfortable position and shooting
up at an angle of sixty degrees at a range of 200 yards at the
small white mark on the ghooral's throat, there did not appear
to be one chance in a million of the shot coming off, and yet
the heavy lead bullet driven by black powder had not been
deflected by a hair's breadth and had gone true to its mark,
killing the animal instantaneously. Again, on the steep hillside
which was broken up by small ravines and jutting rocks, the
dead animal had slipped and rolled straight to the spot where
its two companions were lying up; and before it had cleared
the patch of grass the two companions in their turn were slipping

Man-eaters of Kumadn

rolling down the hill. As the three dead animals landed
in the ravine in front of us it was amusing to observe the
surprise and delight of the men who never before had seen a
rifle in action. All thought of the man-eater was for the time
being forgotten as they scrambled down into the ravine to
retrieve the bag.

The expedition was a great success in more ways than one;
for in addition to providing a ration of meat for everyone, it
gained me the confidence of the entire village. Shikar yarns,
as everyone knows, never lose anything in repetition, and while
the ghooral were being skinned and divided up the three men
who had accompanied me gave full rein to *heir imagination,
and from where I sat in the open, having breakfast, I could hear
the exclamations of the assembled crowd when they were told
that the ghooral had been shot at a range of over a mile, and
that the magic bullets used had not only killed the animals
like that but had also drawn them to the sahib's feet.

After the midday meal the Headman asked me where I
wanted to go, and how many men I wished to take with me.
From the eager throng of men who pressed round I selected
two of my late companions, and with them to guide me set off
to visit the scene of the last human tragedy.

The people of our hills are Hindus and cremate their dead,
and when one of their number has been carried off by a man-
eater it is incumbent on the relatives to recover some portion of
the body for cremation even if it be only a few splinters of
bone. In the case of this woman the cremation ceremony was
yet to be performed, and as we started out, the relatives re-
quested us to bring back any portion of the body we might find.

From early boyhood I have made a hobby of reading, and
interpreting, jungle signs. In the present case I had the account
of the eye-witnesses who were present when the woman was
killed, but eye-witnesses are not always reliable, whereas jungle
signs are a true record of all that has transpired. On arrival

The Champawat Man-eater

at the spot a glance at the ground showed me that the
could only have approached the tree one way, without
seen, and that was up the ravine. Entering the ravine a hundred
yards below the tree, and working up, I found the pug marks
of a tiger in some fine earth that had sifted down between two
big rocks; these pug marks showed the animal to be a tigress,
a little past her prime. Further up the ravine, and some ten
yards from the tree, the tigress had lain down behind a rock,
presumably to wait for the woman to climb down from the tree.
The victim had been the first to cut all the leaves she needed,
and as she was letting herself down by a branch some two
inches in diameter the tigress had crept forward and, standing
up on her hind legs, had caught the woman by the foot and
pulled her down into the ravine. The branch showed the des-
peration with which the unfortunate woman had clung to it,
for adhering to the rough oak bark where the branch, and
eventually the leaves, had slipped through her grasp were
strands of skin which had been torn from the palms of her hands
and fingers. Where the tigress had killed the woman there were
signs of a struggle and a big patch of dried blood; from here
the blood trail, now dry but distinctly visible, led across the
ravine and up the opposite bank. Following the blood trail
from where it left the ravine we found the place in the bushes
where the tigress had eaten her kill.

It is a popular belief that man-eaters do not eat the head,
hands, and feet of the human victims. This is incorrect. Man-
eaters, if not disturbed, eat everything including the blood-
soaked clothes, as I found on one occasion; however, that is
another story, and will be told some other time.

On the present occasion we found the woman's clothes, and a
few pieces of bone which we wrapped up in the clean cloth we
had brought for the purpose . Pitifully little as these remains were,
they would suffice for the cremation ceremony which would en-
sure the ashes of the high caste woman reaching Mother Ganges.

Man-eaters of Kumaon

tea I visited the scene of yet another tragedy. Separated
ftoirn th6 main village by the public road was a small holding
of a few acres. The owner of this holding had built himself
a hut on the hillside just above the road. The man's wife, and
the mother of his two children, a boy and a girl aged four and
six respectively, was the younger of two sisters. These two
sisters were out cutting grass one day on the hill above the
hut when the tigress suddenly appeared and carried off the elder
sister. For a hundred yards the younger woman ran after the
tigress brandishing her sickle and screaming at the tigress to
let her sister go, and take her instead. This incredible act of
heroism was witnessed by the people in the main village. After
carrying the dead woman for a hundred yards the tigress put
her down and turned on her pursuer. With a loud roar it
sprang at the brave woman who, turning, raced down the
hillside, across the road, and into the village, evidently with
the intention of telling the people what they, unknown to her,
had already witnessed. The woman's incoherent noises were
at the time attributed to loss of breath, fear, and excitement,
and it was not until the rescue party that had set out with all
speed had returned, unsuccessful, that it was found the woman
had lost her power of speech. I was told this tale in the village,
and when I climbed the path to the two-roomed hut where
the woman was engaged in washing clothes, she had then been
dumb a twelvemonth.

Except for a strained look in her eyes the dumb woman
appeared to be quite normal and, when I stopped to speak to
her and tell her I had come to try and shoot the tiger that had
killed her sister, she put her hands together and stooping down
touched my feet, making me feel a wretched impostor. True,
I had come with the avowed object of shooting the man-eater,
but with an animal that had the reputation of never killing
twice in the same locality, never returning to a kill, and whose
domain extended over an area of many hundred square miles,

The Champawat Man-eater II

the chance of my accomplishing my object was about as good
as finding a needle in two haystacks.

Plans in plenty I had made way back in Naini Tal; one I
had already tried and wild horses would not induce me to try
it again, and the others now that I was on the ground were
just as unattractive. Further there was no one I could ask
for advice, for this was the first man-eater that had ever been
known in Kumaon; and yet something would have to be done.
So for the next three days I wandered through the jungles
from sunrise to sunset, visiting all the places for miles round
where the villagers told me there was a chance of my seeing
the tigress.

I would like to interrupt my tale here for a few minutes
to refute a rumour current throughout the hills that on this,
and on several subsequent occasions, 'I assumed the dress of a
hill woman and, going into the jungle, attracted the man-eaters
to myself and killed them with either a sickle or an axe. 11"
I have ever done in the matter of alteration of dress has been.
to borrow a sari and with it draped round me cut grass, '<&
climbed into trees and cut leaves, and in no case has the rusif
proved successful; though on two occasions to my knowledge
man-eaters have stalked the tree I was on, taking cover, on
one occasion behind a rock and on the other behind a fallen
tree, and giving me no opportunity of shooting them.

To continue. As the tigress now appeared to have left this
locality I decided, much to the regret of the people of Pali, to
move to Champawat fifteen miles due east of Pali. Making an
early start, I breakfasted at Dhunaghat, and completed the
journey to Champawat by sunset. The roads in this area were
considered very unsafe, and men only moved from village to vil-
lage or to the bazaars in large parties. After leaving Dhuna-
ghat, my party of eight was added to by men from villages
adjoining the road, and we arrived at Champawat thirty strong.
Some of the men who joined me had been in a party of twenty

12 Man-eaters of Kumaon

men who had visited Champawat two months earlier, and they
told me the following very pitiful story.

'The road for a few miles on this side of Champawat runs
along the south face of the hill, parallel to, and about fifty
yards above the valley. Two months ago a party of twenty
of us men were on our way to the bazaar at Champawat, and
as we were going along this length of the road at about midday,
we were startled by hearing the agonized cries of a human being
coming from the valley below. Huddled together on the edge
of the road we cowered in fright as these cries drew nearer and
nearer, and presently into view came a tiger, carrying a naked
woman. The woman's hair was trailing on the ground on one
side of the tiger, and her feet on the other the tiger was hold-
ing her by the small of the back and she was beating her chest
and calling alternately on God and man to help her. Fifty
yards from, and in clear view of us, the tiger passed with its
burden, and when the cries had died away in the distance we
continued on our way.'

' And you twenty men did nothing? '

'No, sahib, we did nothing for we were afraid, and what
can men do when they are afraid? And further, even if we
had been able to rescue the woman without angering the tiger
and bringing misfortune on ourselves, it would have availed
the woman nothing, for she was covered with blood and would
of a surety have died of her wounds/

I subsequently learned that the victim belonged to a village
near Champawat, and that she had been carried off by the
tiger while collecting dry sticks. Her companions had run back
to the village and raised an alarm, and just as a rescue party
was starting the twenty frightened men arrived. As these men
knew the direction in which the tiger had gone with its victim,
they joined the party, and can best carry on the story.

' We were fifty or sixty strong when we set out to rescue the
woman, and several of the party were armed with guns. A

The Champawat Man-eater 1$

furlong from where the sticks collected by the woman were
lying, and from where she had been carried off, we found her
torn clothes. Thereafter the men started beating their drums
and firing off their guns, and in this way we proceeded for
more than a mile right up to the head of the valley, where
we found the woman, who was little more than a girl, lying
dead on a great slab of rock. Beyond licking off all the blood
apd making her body clean the tiger had not touched her, and,
there being no woman in our party, we men averted our faces
as we wrapped her body in the loincloths which one and
another gave, for she looked as she lay on her back as one who
sleeps, and would waken in shame when touched/

With experiences such as these to tell and retell through the
long night watches behind fast-shut doors, it is little wonder
that the character and outlook on life of people living year
after year in a man-eater country should change, and that one
coming from the outside should feel that he had stepped right
into a world of stark realities and the rule of the tooth and claw,
which forced man in the reign of the sabre-toothed tiger to
shelter in dark caverns. I was young and inexperienced in
those far-off Champawat days, but, even so, the conviction I
came to after a brief sojourn in that stricken land, that there
is no more terrible thing than to live and have one's being
under the shadow of a man-eater, has been strengthened by
thirty-two years' subsequent experience.

The Tahsildar of Champawat, to whom I had been given
letters of introduction, paid me a visit that night at the Dak
Bungalow where I was putting up, and suggested I should move
next day to a bungalow a few miles away, in the vicinity of
which many human beings had been killed.

Early next morning, accompanied by the Tahsildar, I set out
for the bungalow, and while I was having breakfast on the
verandah two men arrived with news that a cow had been killed
by a tiger in a village ten miles away. The Tahsildar excused

14 Man-eaters of Kumaon

himself to attend to some urgent work at Champawat, and
said he would return to the bungalow in the evening and stay
the night with me. My guides were good walkers, and as the
track went downhill most of the way we covered the ten miles
in record time. Arrived at the village I was taken to a cattle-
shed in which I found a week-old calf, killed and partly eaten
by a leopard. Not having the time or the inclination to shoot
the leopard I rewarded my guides, and retraced my steps to
the bungalow. Here I found the Tahsildar had not returned,
and as there was still an hour or more of daylight left I went
out with the chowkidar of the bungalow to look at a place where
he informed me a tiger was in the habit of drinking; this place
I found to be the head of the spring which supplied the garden
with irrigation water. In the soft earth round the spring were
tiger pug marks several days old, but these tracks were quite
different from the pug marks I had seen, and carefully
examined, in the ravine in which the woman of Pali village had
been killed.

On returning to the bungalow I found the Tahsildar was
back, and as we sat on the verandah I told him of my day's
experience. Expressing regret at my having had to go so far
on a wild-goose chase, he rose, saying that as he had a long
way to go he must start at once. This announcement caused
me no little surprise, for twice that day he had said he would
stay the night with me. It was not the question of his staying
the night that concerned me, but the risk he was taking; how-
ever, he was deaf to all my arguments and, as he stepped off
the verandah into the dark night, with only one man following
him carrying a smoky lantern which gave a mere glimmer of
light, to do a walk of four miles in a locality in which men
only moved in large parties in daylight, I took off my hat to
a very brave man. Having watched him out of sight I turned
and entered the bungalow.

I have a tale to tell of that bungalow but I will not tell it

The Champawat Man-eater 15

here, for this is a book of jungle stories, and tales ' beyond the
laws of nature ' do not consort well with such stories.

ii

I spent the following morning in going round the very
extensive fruit orchard and tea garden and in having a bath at
the spring, and at about midday the Tahsildar, much to my
relief, returned safely from Champawat.

I was standing talking to him while looking down a long
sloping hill with a village surrounded by cultivated land in the
distance, when I saw a man leave the village and start up the
hill in our direction. As the man drew nearer I saw he was
alternately running and walking, and was quite evidently the
bearer of important news. Telling the Tahsildar I would return
in a few minutes, I set off at a run 'down the hill, and when
the man saw me coming he sat down to take breath. As soon
as I was near enough to hear him he called out, ' Come quickly,
sahib, the man-eater has just killed a girl/ 'Sit still/ I called
back, and turning ran up to the bungalow. I passed the news
on to the Tahsildar while I was getting a rifle and some cart-
ridges, and asked him to follow me down to the village.

The man who had come for me was one of those exasperating
individuals whose legs and tongue cannot function at the same
time. When he opened his mouth he stopped dead, and when
he started to run his mouth closed; so telling him to shut his
mouth and lead the way, we ran in silence down the hill.

At the village an excited crowd of men, women and children
awaited us and, as usually happens on these occasions, all started
to talk at the same time. One man was vainly trying to quieten
the babel. I led him aside and asked him to tell me what had
happened. Pointing to some scattered oak trees on a gentle
slope a furlong or so from the village, he said a dozen people
were collecting dry sticks under the trees when a tiger suddenly
appeared and caught one of their number, a girl sixteen or

16 Man-eaters of Kumaon

seventeen years of age. The rest of the party had run back to
the village, and as it was known that I was staying at
the bungalow a man had immediately been dispatched to
inform me.

The wife of the man I was speaking to had been of the party,
and she now pointed out the tree, on the shoulder of the hill,
under which the girl had been taken. None of the party had
looked back to see if the tiger was carrying away its victim
and, if so, in which direction it had gone.

Instructing the crowd not to make a noise, and to remain in
the village until I returned, I set off in the direction of the tree.
The ground here was quite open and it was difficult to conceive
how an animal the size of a tiger could have approached twelve
people unseen, and its presence not detected, until attention
had been attracted by the choking sound made by the girl.

The spot where the girl had been killed was marked by a
pool of blood and near it, and in vivid contrast to the crimson
pool, was a broken necklace of brightly coloured blue beads
which the girl had been wearing. From this spot the track led
up and round the shoulder of the hill.

The track of the tigress was clearly visible. On one side
of it were great splashes of blood where the girl's head had
hung down, and on the other side the trail of her feet. Half
a mile up the hill I found the girl's sari, and on the brow of
the hill her skirt. Once again the tigress was carrying a naked
woman, but mercifully on this occasion her burden was dead.

On the brow of the hill the track led through a thicket
of blackthorn, on the thorns of which long strands of the girl's
raven-black hair had caught. Beyond this was a bed of nettles
through which the tigress had gone, and I was looking for a
way round this obstruction when I heard footsteps behind me.
Turning round I saw a man armed with a rifle coming towards
me. I asked him why he had followed me when I had left
instructions at the village that no one was to leave it. He said

The Champawat Man-eater J7

the Tahsildar had instructed him to accompany me, and that he
was afraid to disobey orders. As he appeared determined to
carry out his orders, and to argue the point would have meant
the loss of valuable time, I told him to remove the heavy pair
of boots he was wearing and, when he had hidden them under
a bush, I advised him to keep close to me, and to keep a sharp
lookout behind.

I was wearing a very thin pair of stockings, shorts, and a
pair of rubber-soled shoes, and as there appeared to be no way
round the nettles I followed the tigress through them much to
my discomfort.

Beyond the nettles the blood trail turned sharply to the left,
and went straight down the very steep hill, which was densely
clothed with bracken and ringals. 1 A hundred yards down,
the blood trail led into a narrow and very steep watercourse,
down which the tigress had gone with some difficulty, as could
be seen from the dislodged stones and earth. I followed this
watercourse for five or six hundred yards, my companion getting
more and more agitated the further we went. A dozen times
he caught my arm and whispered in a voice full of tears that
he could hear the tiger, either on one side or the other, or behind
us. Half-way down the hill we came on a great pinnacle of
rock some thirty feet high, and as the man had by now had all
the man-eater hunting he could stand, I told him to climb the
rock and remain on it until I returned. Very gladly he went
up, and when he straddled the top and signalled to me that
he was all right I continued on down the watercourse, which,
after skirting round the rock, went straight down for a hundred
yards to where it met a deep ravine coming down from the left.
At the junction was a small pool, and as I approached it I saw
patches of blood on my side of the water.

The tigress had carried the girl straight down on this spot,
and my approach had disturbed her at her meal. Splinters of

1 Hill bamboos.

3

18 Man-eaters of Kumaon

bone were scattered round the deep pug marks into which
discoloured water was slowly seeping and at the edge of the
pool was an object which had puzzled me as I came down
the watercourse, and which I now found was part of a human
leg. In all the subsequent years I have hunted man-eaters I
have not seen anything as pitiful as that young comely leg bit-
ten off a little below the knee as clean as though severed by the
stroke of an axe out of which the warm blood was trickling.

While looking at the leg I had forgotten all about the tigress
until I suddenly felt that I was in great danger. Hurriedly
grounding the butt of the rifle I put two fingers on the triggers,
raising my head as I did so, and saw a little earth from the
fifteen-foot bank in front of me, come rolling down the steep
side and plop into the pool. I was new to this game of man-
eater hunting or I should not have exposed myself to an attack
in the way I had done. My prompt action in pointing the rifle
upwards had possibly saved my life, and in stopping her spring,
or in turning to get away, the tigress had dislodged the earth
from the top of the bank.

The bank was too steep for scrambling, and the only way
of getting up was to take it at a run. Going up the watercourse
a short distance I sprinted down, took the pool in my stride,
and got far enough up the other side to grasp a bush and pull
myself on to the bank. A bed of Strobilanthes, the bent stalks
of which were slowly regaining their upright position, showed
where, and how recently, the tigress had passed, and a little
further on under an overhanging rock I found where she had
left her kill when she came to have a look at me.

Her tracks now as she carried away the girl led into a
wilderness of rocks, some acres in extent, where the going was
both difficult and dangerous. The cracks and chasms between
the rocks were masked with ferns and blackberry vines, and a
false step, which might easily have resulted in a broken limb,
would have been fatal. Progress under these conditions was of

The Chnmpawat Man-eater 19

necessity slow, and the tigress was taking advantage of it tci
continue her meal. A dozen times I found where she had rested;
and after each of these rests the blood trail became more distinct.

This was her four hundred and thirty-sixth human kill and
she was qulfe' accustomed to being disturbed at her meals by
rescue parties, but this, I think, was the first time she had been
followed up so persistently and she now began to show her
resentment by growling. To appreciate a tiger's growl to the
full it is necessary to be situated as I then was rocks all round
with dense vegetation between, and the imperative necessity of
testing each footstep to avoid falling headlong into unseen
chasms and caves.

I cannot expect you who read this at your fireside to
appreciate my feelings at the time. The sound of the growling
and the expectation of an attack terrified me at the same time
as it gave me hope. If the tigress lost her temper sufficiently
to launch an attack, it would not only give me an opportunity
of accomplishing the object for which I had come, but it would
enable me to get even with her for all the pain and suffering
she had caused.

The growling, however, was only a gesture, and when she
found that instead of shooing me off it was bringing me faster
on her heels, she abandoned it.

I had now been on her track for over four hours. Though
I had repeatedly seen the undergrowth moving I had not seen
so much as a hair of her hide, and. a glance at the shadows
climbing up the opposite hillside warned me it was time to
retrace my steps if I was to reach the village before dark.

The late owner of the severed leg was a Hindu, and some
portion of her would be needed for the cremation, so as I
passed the pool I dug a hole in the bank and buried the leg
where it would be safe from the tigress, and could be found
when wanted.

My companion on the rock was very relieved to see me.

20 Man-eaters of Kumaon

My long absence, and the growling he had heard, had con-
vinced him that the tigress had secured another kill and his
difficulty, as he quite frankly admitted, was how he was going
to get back to the village alone.

I thought when we were climbing down the watercourse
that I knew of no more dangerous proceeding than walking in
front of a nervous man carrying a loaded gun, but I changed
my opinion when on walking behind him he slipped and fell,
and I saw where the muzzle of his gun a converted .450 with-
out a safety catch was pointing. Since that day except when
accompanied by Ibbotson I have made it a hard and fast rule
to go alone when hunting man-eaters, for if one's companion
is unarmed it is difficult to protect him, and if he is armed,
it is even more difficult to protect oneself.

Arrived at the crest of the hill, where the man had hidden
his boots, I sat down to have a smoke and think out my plans
for the morrow.

The tigress would finish what was left of the kill during
the night, and would to a certainty lie up among the rocks
next day.

On the ground she was on there was very little hope of my
being able to stalk her, and if I disturbed her without getting
a shot, she would probably leave the locality and I should lose
touch with her. A beat therefore was the only thing to do,
provided I could raise sufficient men.

I was sitting on the south edge of a great amphitheatre of
hills, without a habitation of any kind in sight. A stream
entering from the west had fretted its way down, cutting a deep
valley right across the amphitheatre. To the east the stream
had struck solid rock, and turning north had left the amphi-
theatre by a narrow gorge.

The hill in front of me, rising to a height of some two
thousand feet, was clothed in short grass with a pine tree dotted
here and there, and the hill to the east was too precipitous for

The Champawat Man-eater 2i

anything but a ghooral to negotiate. If I could collect sufficient
men to man the entire length of the ridge from the stream to
the precipitous hill, and get them to stir up the tigress, her most
natural line of retreat would be through the narrow gorge.

Admittedly a very difficult beat, for the steep hillside facing
north, on which I had left the tigress, was densely wooded and
roughly three-quarters of a mile long and half-a-mile wide;
however, if I could get the beaters to carry out instructions,
there was a reasonable chance of my getting a shot.

The Tahsildar was waiting for me at the village. I explained
the position to him, and asked him to take immediate steps to
collect as many men as he could, and to meet me at the tree
where the girl had been killed at ten o'clock the following
morning. Promising to do his best, he left for Champawat,
while I climbed the hill to the bungalow.

I was up at crack of dawn next morning, and after a sub-
stantial meal told my men to pack up and wait for me at
Champawat, and went down to have another look at the ground
I intended beating. I could find nothing wrong with the plans
I had made, and an hour before my time I was at the spot
where I had asked the Tahsildar to meet me.

That he would have a hard time in collecting the men I
had no doubt, for the fear of the man-eater had sunk deep into
the countryside and more than mild persuasion would be needed
to make the men leave the shelter of their homes. At ten
o'clock the Tahsildar and one man turned up, and thereafter
the men came in twos, and threes, and tens, until by midday
two hundred and ninety-eight had collected.

The Tahsildar had let it be known that he would turn a
blind eye towards all unlicensed fire-arms, and further that he
would provide ammunition where required; and the weapons
that were produced that day would have stocked a museum.

When the men were assembled and had received the ammu-
nition they needed I took them to the brow of the hill where

22 Man-eaters of Kumaon

the girl's skirt was lying, and pointing to a pine tree on the
opposite hill that had been struck by lightning and stripped
of bark, I told them to line themselves up along the ridge and,
when they saw me wave a handkerchief from under the pine,
those of them who were armed were to fire off their pieces,
while the others beat drums, shouted, and rolled down rocks,
and that no one was on any account to leave the ridge until
I returned and personally collected him. When I was assured
that all present had heard and understood my instructions, I
set off with the Tahsildar, who said he would be safer with
me than with the beaters whose guns would probably burst and
cause many casualties.

Making a wide detour I crossed the upper end of the valley,
gained the opposite hill, and made my way down to the blasted
pine. From here the hill went steeply down and the Tahsildar,
who had on a thin pair of patent leather shoes, said it was
impossible for him to go any further. While he was removing
his inadequate foot-gear to ease his blisters, the men on the
ridge, thinking I had forgotten to give the pre-arranged signal,
fired off their guns and set up a great shout. I was still a
hundred and fifty yards from the gorge, and that I did not
break my neck a dozen times in covering this distance was due
to my having been brought up on the hills, and being in
consequence as sure-footed as a goat.

As I ran down the hill I noticed that there was a patch of
green grass near the mouth of the gorge, and as there was no
time to look round for a better place, I sat down in the grass,
with my back to the hill down which I had just come. The
grass was about two feet high and hid half my body, and if
I kept perfectly still there was a good chance of my not being
seen. Facing me was the hill that was being beaten, and the
gorge that I hoped the tigress would make for was behind my
left shoulder.

Pandemonium had broken loose on the ridge. Added to

The Champawat Man-eater 23

the fusillade of guns was the wild beating of drums and the
shouting of hundreds of men, and when the din was at its worst
I caught sight of the tigress bounding down a grassy slope
between two ravines to my right front, and about three hundred
yards away. She had only gone a short distance when the
Tahsildar from his position under the pine let off both barrels
of his short-gun. On hearing the shots the tigress whipped
round and went straight back the way she had come, and as
she disappeared into thick cover I threw up my rifle and sent
a despairing bullet after her.

The men on the ridge, hearing the three shots, not un-
naturally concluded that the tigress had been killed. They
emptied all their guns and gave a final yell, and I was holding
my breath and listening for the screams that would herald the
tigress's arrival on the ridge, when she suddenly broke cover
to my left front and, taking the stream at a bound, came straight
for the gorge. The .500 modified cordite rifle, sighted at sea
level, shot high at this altitude, and when the tigress stopped
dead I thought the bullet had gone over her back, and that
she had pulled up on finding her retreat cut off; as a matter
of fact I had hit her all right, but a little far back. Lowering
her head, she half turned towards me, giving me a beautiful
shot at the point of her shoulder at a range of less than thirty
yards. She flinched at this second shot but continued, with
her ears laid flat and bared teeth, to stand her ground, while
I sat with rifle to shoulder trying to think what it would be
best for me to do when she charged, for the rifle was empty
and I had no more cartridges. Three cartridges were all that
I had brought with me, for I never thought I should get a
chance of firing more than two shots, and the third cartridge
was for an emergency.

Fortunately the wounded animal most unaccountably decided
against a charge. Very slowly she turned, crossed the stream
to her right, climbed over some fallen rocks, and found a

24 Man-eaters of Kumaon

narrow ledge that went diagonally up and across the face of
the precipitous hill to where there was a great flat projecting
rock. Where this rock joined the cliff a small bush had found
root-hold, and going up to it the tigress started to strip its
branches. Throwing caution to the winds I shouted to the
Tahsildar to bring me his gun. A long reply was shouted back,
the only word of which I caught was ' feet ': Laying down my
rifle I took the hill at a run, grabbed the gun out of the Tahsil-
dar 's hands and raced back.

As I approached the stream the tigress left the bush and
came out on the projecting rock towards me. When I was
within twenty feet of her I raised the gun and found to my
horror that there was a gap of about three-eighths of an inch
between the barrels and the breech-block. The gun had not
burst when both barrels 'had been fired, and would probably
not burst now, but there was danger of being blinded by a
blow back. However, the risk would have to be taken, and,
aligning the great blob of a bead that did duty as a sight on
the tigress's open mouth, I fired. Maybe I bobbed, or maybe
the gun was not capable of throwing the cylindrical bullet accu-
rately for twenty feet; anyway, the missile missed the tigress's
mouth and struck her on the right paw, from where I removed
it later with my finger-nails. Fortunately she was at her last
gasp, and the tap on the foot was sufficient to make her lurch
forward. She came to rest with her head projecting over the
side of the rock.

From the moment the tigress had broken cover in her
attempt to get through the gorge I had forgotten the beaters,
until I was suddenly reminded of their existence by hearing
a shout, from a short distance up the hill, of 'There it is on
the rock! Pull it down and let us hack it to bits.' I could
not believe my ears when I heard 'hack it to bits', and yet I
had heard aright, for others now had caught sight of the tigress
and from all over the hillside the shout was being repeated.

The Champawat Man-eater 25

The ledge by which the wounded animal had gained the
projecting rock was fortunately on the opposite side from the
beaters, and was just wide enough to permit my shuffling along
it sideways. As I reached the rock and stepped over the tigress
hoping devoutly she was dead for I had not had time to
carry out the usual test of pelting her with stones the men
emerged from the forest and came running across the open,
brandishing guns, axes, rusty swords, and spears.

At the rock, which was twelve to fourteen feet in height,
their advance was checked, for the outer face had been worn
smooth by the stream when in spate and afforded no foothold
even for their bare toes. The rage of the crowd on seeing
their dread enemy was quite understandable, for there was not
a man among them who had not suffered at her hands. One
man, who appeared demented and was acting as ring-leader,
was shouting over and over again as he ran to and fro brandish-
ing a sword, ' This is the shaitan l that killed my wife and my
two sons/ As happens with crowds, the excitement died down
as suddenly as it had flared up, and to the credit of the man
who had lost his wife and sons be it said that he was the first
to lay down his weapon. He came near to the rock and said,
' We were mad, sahib, when we saw our enemy, but the madness
has now passed, and we ask you and the Tahsildar sahib to
forgive us/ Extracting the unspent cartridge, I laid the gun
across the tigress and hung down by my hands and was assisted
to the ground. When I showed the men how I had gained
the rock the dead animal was very gently lowered and carried
to an open spot, where all could crowd round and look at her.

When the tigress had stood on the rock looking down at
me I had noticed that there was something wrong with her
mouth, and on examining her now I found that the upper
and lower canine teeth on the right side of her mouth were
broken, the upper one in half, and the lower one right down

* Devil.

26 Man-eaters of Kumaon

to the bone. This permanent injury to her teeth the result
of a gun-shot wound had prevented her from killing her natural
prey, and had been the cause of her becoming a man-eater.

The men begged me not to skin the tigress there, and
asked me to let them have her until nightfall to carry through
their villages, saying that if their womenfolk and children did
not see her with their own eyes, they would not believe that
their dread enemy was dead.

Two saplings were now cut and laid one on either side of
the tigress, and with pugrees, waistbands and loincloths she was
carefully and very securely lashed to them. When all was
ready the saplings were manned and we moved to the foot of
the precipitous hill; the men preferred to take the tigress up this
hill, on the far side of which their villages lay, to going up the
densely wooded hill which they had just beaten. Two human
ropes were made by the simple expedient of the man behind
taking a firm grip of the waistband, or other portion of clothing,
of the man in front of him. When it was considered that the
ropes were long and strong enough to stand the strain, they
attached themselves to the saplings, and with men on either
side to hold the feet of the bearers and give them foothold, the
procession moved up the hill, looking for all the world like an
army of ants carrying a beetle up the face of a wall. Behind
the main army was a second and a smaller one the Tahsildar
being carried up. Had the ropes broken at any stage of that
thousand-foot climb, the casualties would have been appalling,
but the rope did not break. The men gained the crest of the hill
and set off eastwards, singing on their triumphal march, while
the Tahsildar and I turned west and made for Champa wat.

Our way lay along the ridge and once again I stood among
the blackthorn bushes on the thorns of which long tresses of
the girl's hair had caught, and for the last time looked down
into the amphitheatre which had been the scene of our recent
exploit.

The Champawat Man-eater 27

On the way down the hill the beaters had found the head
of the unfortunate girl, and a thin column of smoke rising
straight up into the still air from the mouth of the gorge showed
where the relations were performing the last rites of the
Champawat man-eater's last victim, on the very spot on which
the man-eater had been shot.

After dinner, while I was standing in the courtyard of the
Tahsil, I saw a long procession of pine torches winding its way
down the opposite hillside, and presently the chanting of a
hill song by a great concourse of men was borne up on the
still night air. An hour later, the tigress was laid down at
my feet.

It was difficult to skin the animal with so many people
crowding round, and to curtail the job I cut the head and paws
from the trunk and left them adhering to the skin, to be dealt
with later. A police guard was then mounted over the carcass,
and next day, when all the people of the countryside were
assembled, the trunk, legs and tail of the tigress were cut up
into small pieces and distributed. These pieces of flesh and
bone were required for the lockets which hill children wear
round their necks, and the addition of a piece of tiger to the
other potent charms is credited with giving the wearer courage,
as well as immunity from the attacks of wild animals. The
fingers of the girl which the tigress had swallowed whole were
sent to me in spirits by the Tahsildar, and were buried by me
in the Naini Tal lake close to the Nandadevi temples.

While I had been skinning the tigress the Tahsildar and his
staff, assisted by the Headmen and greybeards of the surround-
ing villages and merchants of the Champawat bazaar, had been
busy drawing up a programme for a great feast and dance for
the morrow, at which I was to preside. Round about midnight,
when the last of the great throng of men had left with shouts
of delight at being able to use roads and village paths that the
man-eater had closed for four years, I had a final smoke with

28 Man-eaters of Kumaon

the Tahsildar, and telling him that I could not stay any longer
and that he would have to take my place at the festivities, my
men and I set off on our seventy-five-mile journey, with two
days in hand to do it in.

At sunrise I left my men and, with the tigress's skin strapped
to the saddle of my horse, rode on ahead to put in a few hours
in cleaning the skin at Dabidhura, where I intended spending
the night. When passing the hut on the hill at Pali it occurred
to me that it would be some little satisfaction to the dumb
woman to know that her sister had been avenged, so leaving the
horse to browse he had been bred near the snow-line and could
eat anything from oak trees to nettles I climbed the hill to the
hut, and spread out the skin with the head supported on a stone
facing the door. The children of the house had been round-
eyed spectators of these proceedings and, hearing me talking to
them, their mother, who was inside cooking, came to the door.

I am not going to hazard any theories about shock, and
counter-shock, for I know nothing of these matters. All I know
is that this woman, who was alleged to have been dumb a
twelvemonth and who four days previously had made no at-
tempt to answer any questions, was now running backwards and
forwards from the hut to the road calling to her husband and the
people in the village to come quickly and see what the sahib
had brought. This sudden return of speech appeared greatly
to mystify the children, who could not take their eyes off their
mother's face.

I rested in the village while a dish of tea was being prepared
for me and told the people who thronged round how the man-
eater had been killed. An hour later I continued my journey
and for half a mile along my way I could hear the shouts of
goodwill of the men of Pali.

I had a very thrilling encounter with a leopard the following
morning, which I only mention because it delayed my start
from Dabidhura and put an extra strain on my small mount

Robin 29

and myself. Fortunately the little pony was as strong on his
legs as he was tough inside, and by holding his tail on the
up-grades, riding him on the flat, and running behind him on
the down-grades, we covered the forty-five miles to Naini Tal
between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

At a durbar held in Naini Tal a few months later Sir John
Hewett, Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces, presented
the Tahsildar of Champa wat with a gun, and the man who
accompanied me when I was looking for the girl with a beautiful
hunting-knife, for the help they had given me. Both weapons
were suitably engraved and will be handed down as heirlooms
in the respective families.

Post Extras