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Show 1870.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE MAMMALS. 627 could distinctly hear growls, and peering over I saw the lips and feet of a tiger under the overhanging rock. The house on which we stood presented a wall facing the rock, and about two yards distant. W e went inside, and I persuaded the owner to make a hole in the wall. I had no means of drawing the charge of m y gun, so rammed down a cartridge on the top of the small shot in one barrel, and a few hollow buttons into the other. In the hurry and excitement, no bullets or iron nails were forthcoming. The Tiger noticed the hole in the wall, but only growled. I fired the button-barrel first, aimed at its neck, but he only answered by a growl, and I saw that the buttons had done no more than turn up the skin, without penetrating. His face was full towards me, and I gave him the cartridge right between the eyes. He gave a furious roar, and bounded into the garden, where he stood for a few seconds bleeding from the nose, and with his tongue lolling from his mouth. I had no more cartridges with me, so I loaded again with the hollow caged buttons which the villagers tore off their coats for me. The Tiger had moved away, and I tracked him by his blood into a dilapidated temple. I looked in at the window, and there stretched beside a coffin sat the noble beast. He turned his head and growled as he saw m e ; and, without a moment's thought, I raised the barrels and fired another shower of buttons at his face. I turned and fled ; but a roar followed which I never shall forget, and I found myself, breathless, at the bottom of a precipice, with m y gun upraised, expecting to see the angry creature upon me; but, strange enough, he did not follow. The villagers, who were assembled two hundred yards away, all ran when I ran ; but seeing the Tiger did not pursue, one of them came forward and put me on his knees, and patting me on the back, helped to bring back m y breath, which I had lost by the fall. W e crept up to the window again. Every one of the thick wooden bars had been knocked out by the force of the leap ; but from the blood only splashing the outside of the window, it was evident the Tiger had not come out of the building. W e looked in at the window, and just below, outstretched on the floor in a pool of blood, lay the Tiger. I threw up m y hat, and shouted to m y friend, who watched the proceedings at a distance, that the Tiger was dead. At the noise the Tiger raised his head and growled. He was a Cat, of course, and had the usual nine lives. I went to the villagers, and proposed a joint attack, but they would not consent. Some of them ascended the hill behind, and fired on to the roof of the house in which the Tiger was sheltered. It was getting dark, so, breathless and hurt, I took boat and returned to Amoy. A few hours after the Tiger is said to have moved away ; but whether he died or survived his wounds, I could never satisfactorily learn, so contradictory were the stories told. In 1859 and 1860 Tiger-cubs were offered in the market at Amoy for sale, and one of them was kept alive by a friend for many months. It eventually died, and I exhibited its skin before this Society on the 23rd of June, 1863*, comparing it with a skin of a Tiger from India of about the same age. It differed a little in the markings of * See P. Z. S. 1863, p. 237. |
