Evening Star Newspaper, December 22, 1929, Page 98

-Hunting From a Platform With a Bull for Bait. Small Hushed Noi;re:,' the Skthering of a Ser- pent, the Agony of Sus- pense—When the Tiger Attacks at Daylight. Playing the Game in Sumatra Style. EDITOR'S NOTE: In a prev- ious article, Mrs. Bradley told how she and her husband, fresh from their African lion hunting expedi- tion, had gone to Sumatra to shoot tigers. They had a discouraging time of it, as the beasts proved elusive. Bait had been put out and a place prepared for the Brad- leys to hide in. Then one night a messenger hurried to them at their hotel to announce that a tiger had been sighted. Out they started. BY MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY. T is said that the tiger will not attack except at night, but all such gener- alizations are It is the exception that makes the epitaph in all big game hunting. It is said, too, e tiger will not attack unprovoked. But tive who went to work in when he managed to draw his dagger. TH!N when word came that tigers had been prowling about a village back in the jungle, picking off small animals, Herbert and I plunged into our khaki, packed bags and took our guns and were off in a motor. We drove into ihe jungle. In front, beside the chauffeur, was a fat Malay in pajamas act- ing as guide and a little boy who knew three words less English than I did Malay, who had appointed himself gur interpreter. We went on between green w of trees until we came to the beginning of a recently used trail. There we abandoned the car and took to our feet. We walked for some time; then the trail ended abruptly in a tiny glade. There before us a black-and-white pony tied to a tree looked up at us dejectedly, a black- and-white goat munched unconcernedly by a bush, and at the base of a sapling two incred- ibly thin little black-and-white dogs pointed their sharp noses at us and barked furiously. Facing this menagerie, by a tree, was a little platform 15 feet up in the air, reached by a bamboo ladder. It had a floor of rough branches and a railing of bamboo and leaves for a screen. This was what the natives had been making for us all day. We had never hunted from a platform or tree in our lives; we had never even climbed a tree in moments of danger, for there had never been a tree at hand that was climbable—nothing but thickets that would have bent with a bird’s nest or giants whose branches began about 80 feet over our heads. We had met all our game on foot and all in the daytime, with the excep- tion of three lons that had declined to be met by day. But the jungle about was too dense for a hid- ing place from which we could hope to see, and we would be right in the tiger’s way if he came; the natives said the When you come to a the game as you find it. ground we knew and could use our own initia- tive, but here we were amateurs, inexperienced, with everything to learn. So, with apologies to our standards, we accepted the platform. But the pony! We wanted a cow to moo and they had brought us a poor little horse that looked as if it could not survive the night. We detained the fat Malay in pajamas and remon- strated with him. We explained in fluent Eng- lish and totally inadequate Maiay what we wanted. ‘The Malay said that the harimau, the tiger, liked horses. We shook our heads. We said that horses did not make a noise to attract tigers. We mooed dramatically to show what we wanted. “Tomorrow,” said the Malay, edging away into the shadows of the jungle. ““Tonight,” said I. “Too late,” said he, or words to that effect. He made a speech about the setting sun. “Come,” said I. My blood was up. Leaving Herbert to guard the menagerie, I dashed back to the car, with the fat Malay and the interpreting boy wasting their vocabularies trying to dissuade me. Hur- riedly we motored back through the darkening jungle to the village. :rml:souchtundzm-n; who had seen us off with wishes of good luck, but the damang was not. ‘He has gone to the mosque to pray,” said the interpreter in suddenly fluent English. I am sure it was a sentence from his school book. “How long will he pray?” I wanted to know. “Twenty minutes.” Twenty minutes was another phrase from the book. I had met it before and did not suspect it of any relation to fact. Night was falling fast, so I sent a delegation into the mosque to remove the damang from his prayers. I waited outside in the car and the population of the place gathered round me. They seemed to be in a very ill humor and I gathered that they were extremely displeased with my attempted rejection of the poor horse. At last the damang appeared and for a mo- ment I hardly knew him. As soon as our de- parture had eased the social strain, he had abandoned his European clothes and shoes and was now comfortably barefoot in his native sarong and nothing else, but his manners were as serious and polite as ever. The only word I knew for cattle was lern- boo, and I used it lavishly. I hoped that it was a general term just meaning cattle, but I suspected that it was specific and that I was demanding definitely a bull. The agitation among the populace increased visibly and the seemed more than a bit upset. If I had known the right word I would glad- ly have compromised on another size and sex but I didn't know any and I stuck to lernboo. I thought of asking for a “lady lernboo” but rejected that as. too confusing. I said that I would wait in the car until a lernboo was brought me. So I sat and waited and the shades of night drew round. Something seemed to be happening at one end of the village and finally, out of the shadows, there came down the road a huge bull, stalking majestically along, a lean figure in batik print holding the nose rope, another figure in print flapping a branch at the un- hurrying hind legs. It was the village bull all right, a prize ani- mal, far too fine for tiger bait. Any tiger of sense would have thought three times before tackling that stalwart creature. But I had asked for a lernboo and a lernboo was pro- duced, so off we went in formal the car rocking ahead with long waits for the slow-paced buil. I had got what I wanted in one respect at least; that bull had a voice and he bellowed his disgust reverberatingly. It was dark when we reached the jungle and confronted Herbert with the offering. He was amaged at its size and majesty. I could see he felt that something smaller might have been selected, but I was not going to back down on my beast. “He’s the bellowing kind,” I explained. “That's what you wanted.” “Why doesn't he bellow then?” said Herbert. “He has been bellowing,” said I. “He'll prob- ably begin again as soon as he finds what's up.” of the jungle, so off they sped, handing to opportunities. Hastily Herbert now lighted a lamp. We had been told by many people that tigers utterly disregard lights and that a lamp would not keep them away. It was certainly essen- tial to have a little light on our animals, as moon and we could not see to darkness. It did not sound very since a tiger was so cautious hing anything out of the way, inhabitants of Sumatra said so, they know. So in a leafy thicket we ar- tiny lamp that threw a pale ray e menagerie. g of the light, for I wanted to kill e moment it appeared, before it harm animals. I hated to use living bait. It is one thing to know that a tiger kills ving thing almost every night of its it is another to have to see him do it. , in particular, troubled me. I sup- pose that extinction is the happiest possibie fate for any dogein a Mohammedan community but these dogs might have their own prefer- ences. The community was not strictly Mo- hammedan or it would not have possessed dogs at all, but it did possess them and treated them with callous casualness. These little fellows were so starved that we handed over to them lad th ed we had brought for our own supper, and they wolfed it down voraciously. As we did these final things we were con- scious of glancing furtively over our shoulders into the blackening caverns of shadows, then we scrambled! up the la@der and took our y had seen tiger tracks very forest, we had some degree If there was a tiger t bull let out one of i 5B v3 investigate and, if bull too huge to tackle, he t or the dogs. It seemed :. :e that we were catering to every possible All about us the jungle began waking to its nocturnal life. Its stillness was the still- ness of furtive, watchful things, intent and . « . The listening ear caught the £ bough . the whirring of a bat's wings. The air vibrated to the high, thin tremolo of insects . . , Now and then, from the depths of the forest, came some coughing grunt. It was black as a bat's cave save for the pale flare that touched the outiines of the