2012, ISBN: 9781130802436

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustra… mais…

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 Excerpt: ...to take a charge, standing in a howdah perched on the back of a large tusker; but it is a very different thing for the opium-sodden nerves of an unarmed mahout riding a small timid pad elephant. Close order is the only safe formation for pad elephants, and should invariably be adopted. If the tiger is marked into a particular bush, the line may be halted, and the howdah elephants alone be taken up to engage him; but until the mahouts have thorough confidence in the guns a fight is better avoided. It is a good plan to reward all the mahouts engaged after a successful hunt, and the douceur should be bestowed on the spot, or at latest the same evening on return to camp; any mahout misconducting himself of course forfeits the reward. A wounded tiger rarely goes far before lying up, and there is really less chance of a close line missing him than an extended one, as with the latter he may crouch and be passed over. Ringing tigers with a large number of elephants, as practised in the Nepal Terai, is merely a variation of the ordinary method, and is thus described by Sir E. Durand: The usual method is to send men ahead the day before, to tie up buffaloes in all the likely places round the place selected for camp, then beat up the jungle with a long line of three or four hundred elephants. If a kill is found, the flanks of the line gradually get forward and wheel inwards, and on a tiger being seen the flanks sweep round as rapidly as possible and form a ring round the patch of jungle the tiger is supposed to be in. If the tiger breaks out, fast elephants are sent in pursuit at once to head him and try to detain him till a fresh ring can be formed. On one occasion, when a kill had been found, both flanks of the line of elephants had gradually been creeping forward t... Weight:0.54 lbs, RareBooksClub.com, 3/4/2012 0:00:00<