The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 29, 1897, Page 18

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SU AY, AUGUST 2 1897. How Whole Villages of People Give Up All Work and Join in the Chase for the Terrible Beast That Is Feared by All About eighteen months ago my friend | Harry and I started on a hunting and ex- plor: trip up the valley of the River Brahmapootra, in the province of Assam, | northeast India. We had some difficulty in making a start, as we could not spenk the natve | languages and we had to arrange for transporting our tents and other belong- ings from place to place, tat last some | of the European tea planters near Delu- | garth kindly interestad themselves in our affairs and sssisted us by sending for a na- contractor. s man, Bhoodiemoore, was abtout 50 | ge, and guaranteed to provide | two good elephants, mahouts and to sit in the syces and comfortable “ghuddies’’ on, howdahs being of no use thick jungle we were bound for. He had also to provide us with fifty car- | riers and coolies, to go with us wherever they might be required, to carry our tents, provisions and other paraphernalia, to rike camp, chop wood for nerally to do everyvthing requisite, and bLe was to sct as guide to the whole party. We put our rifles and ammunition, not forgetting our revalvers, on the elepba: t+, and we had to take along a pound or two of oplum. Ifacything can pull you out of a mess with natives, or cite them to do anything for you, opium is the thing to do it, as it is t0o expensive a luxary for | them to obtain in any q ty. | One day we were taking our supper by | the campfire when some natives of the | “Nargar” tribe came along and asked our guide if the “Sahibs” would come and kill a tiger that Laa been lurking round | their village for some time and which bhad | carried off three of their peopie. | He informed us as to their business and we told him that if it were possitle for | them to drive the tigerinto any ojen | place where we could zet a fair sight at him we would try and get rid of him for them. We knew it would be of no use to try ! N | native may tell you), to shoot him from theelephants, as they were not “shikarri’’ or hunting elephants and would not stand the firing. Alfter a consultation among themselves the villagers said that they knew of an | opening 1n the jungle, near the lair of the tiger, which was about fifty feet wide, and they believed that if the whole viilage turned out, with their tomtoms beating | and with shouting and yelling in a large | circ'e, and gradualiv closingin, they could | surround him and compel him to come ‘ toward the opening. | We told them we would go with them | to the place and see if it was possible to | get clean shooting (for it is best not mi vlace any confidence in what an Indian dif so, we would assist them on the following day to de troy the “man-eater.” We found a lovely glade with no trees either in or around it, the grass about two feet surrounded by bamboo long coarse bigh and wild bananas and —just the right sort of cover for a | i | | tiger. The village numbered some 300 men,’ and, accerdingz to arrangement with our | guide, they agreed about 11 o'clock the following day to siartoutand form s circle of about three to four miles in diameter, and at midday to vegin closing in on the opening. | During the evening Harry and I made rrangements and furbished up our eatest care, not forgetting to pu: our revolvers in our side pockets, our a: It Was Made by a Por Near Ukiah and Is Njarly Five Feet in Diame An Indian basket two and a half feetin | diameter and about the same siz3 from top to bottom would in any part of the | world be considered a monster of its kind. | In fact, one of this size would be a most | difficult thing to obtain, even if it were ordered specially from the Indian weavyer. The reason that it would be hard to ob- | - S tein from the weaver is because said weaver wonld most likely get tired of the work and give it up long beiore the basket was finished. A basket three feet in diameter is almost unbeard of. A few of that size have been made and are now pre- served in certain museums, but they are about as scarce as thunderstorms in Cali- MONSTER INDIAN BASKET] filled our cartridge belts and laid our heads together as to the best way we shouid obtain an aavantage over the beast with safeiy to ourselves. At last we agreed that at 11 o’clock we should be at the opening and station our- selves exactly opposite each other, and whichever side tho tiger should come trom the man on the opgosite side should shoot. We did not sleep much that night, as we were excited at the morrow’s prospects of bagging a tiger and of the chances we took of being chawed up a bit ourselves, as we knew if he were only wounded we should have a desperate fight on hand, and perhaps one or the other of us might go under. 3 Toward morning I fell asleep, but was soon aroused by our guide coming in and telling us that a villager bad arrived with the news that- the ‘‘man-eater’” had car- riea off another victim that night. This was rather good news for us, as | we felt sure that he would not go very far away to dispose of his supper and | would then lie and sleep for some hours, making it almost a certainty that he would be inclosed in the circle which the natives would form. Af.er sending final arrangements to the villages as to the time of starting, etc., we had cur breakfast and started for the ovening, tzking up our npositions, as agreed, just sufficiently inside the under- erowth to give us a clear view of our re- spective sides. We had shaken hands and had each, once more, assured the other that we would stand by till the death. After this we never spoke nor moved more than was necessary, but could hear in the distance the shouts and yells of tae villagers and the beating of the tomtoms, and these gradually approached nearer and nearer until I bezan to feel the ¢x- citement and was mors than ever on the alert for the slightest sound or movement. But nothing disturbsd the immediate silence except the chatter of monkeysand parrots. Tue shouting and yelling came nearer and the tension on my nerves increased, for I could not possibly tay at what mo- ment the savage brute might spring upon me, as it would scarcely be probable that I should hear him before I saw him. The sun was pouring down almost ver- tically, and the temperature about 112 degrees in the shade, and although the excitement was immense, yet I bepan to bave a drowsy feeling creep over me, which was destroved in a moment by what appeared to Le a flash from the jungle exactly opposite to me. It was the tiger. With one tremendous leap he had sprunz out of the bamboos and grass, at a height of six or seven feet from the ground, and stood motionless, | with the exception of waving his tail, much as a cat wiil do after taking a spriang. He wasa magnificent brute as he stood there in all the pride of savage power, evenly striped and looking almost like burnished gold in places as the sun shone full upon him. One thought flashed through my mind: ““What a pity to kill him!” Hardly 2 moment old was the thought when I raised my rifle, took a full sight and pulled the trigger, but only to find that the cartridge had missed fire. Still keeping my eyes fixed on the royal beast, [ saw that he had heard the click of the lock and was looking straight in | my direction. He must Lave seen me | moving to gat another cartridge in, which | HUNTING TIGERS IN THE JUNGLES OF NORTHEAST INDIA. Idid a3 speedily as possible. It was well that I did. Just as I put the rifle to my shoulder again ha crouched for a spring, and he must have been really in the air when I fired, as, although I could not see for the moment through the smoke, I heard a dull thud of something which hud ifallen quite close to me. I was motionless. g A loud “Hurrah!” from Harry told me I had been successful and wonderlully lucky to have made such a shot. Now, as the smoke cleared, I saw the tiger lying within six feet of me, stone dead. The bullet had gone through the shoulder and pierced the heart. Immediately the jungls seemed alive. The natives sprang into the clearing from all directions, yelling, shouting and danc- ing, and befora I could stop them they had hacked and cut at the dead animal to such an extent in their frenzied excite- | ment that the lovely skin was utterly ruined. - 1 was very much annoyed at nou being able to save it as a tropby, but had to be satisfied with the teeth instead. They dragged the carcass to the village, where [ had it weighed, the weight being five and three-quarter ‘‘maunds,” or 460 pounds. The village turned out to be “Nargars,” whose country is the range of mountains lying between Assam and Burmab, and they invited us to go through their country hunting, etc., guar- anteeing that no barm should happen to possession of S. Phillips of 441 South Water street. It is a very rare and valu- able piece of money and is in a very good state of preservaiion. The stamp bears the inscription on its back, *“Found at Fredericksburg in 1862 Thisis in the cramped handwriting ot a soldier, prob- ably, who afterwurd lost it in Denver, for a member of Mr. Phillips’ family found it In 1his city about twenty years ago. | The face of the stamp bears this legend: “Virginia, No. 548, currency; one-third of a Spanish mill’d dollar or the value thereof in gold or silver, to be given in exchange at the treasury of Virginia, pnr- suant to act of Assembly, April 5, 1777. 8. Wood,” In the left-hand corner is the picture of a woman, sword in ba:d, standing beside us, as the Rajah would send us wherever we wished under special escort. ‘Wedia go, but as this paper is now quite long enough, we must postpone to some future date a further account of our trip amongst that very fierce and warlike tribe of people. what looks like a watchdog. About the PRI . . margin the inscription, one-third of a Virginia's On2-Third of a Dollar. |gouiar, is repeated several times. Mr. Phillips also bas a copper penny issued in 1800.—Denver Times. A one-third of & dollar stamp, by the State of Virginia in 1777, is in the \} Y/ i et | | | 1a Indian Woman et i forni]. The average Indian basket is a | littlefover a foot in diameter, aithough it | ls eas{ly possible 10 get them aslargeas| two [set. W fat would you think of a basket over fouifieet in diameter? Ii vou know any- thlr [ about Indian baskets you will most like |7 say that such a one does not exist. [ 1 | ]But it does, and it is considerably over four feet in diameter and almost five feet ‘Aleep. Furtbhermore, it is at the present time within a stone’s throw of Lotta’s | fountain, and so placed that all may see it. Truly, it is & marvelous object, and it window of the Market-street office of the San Francisco and North Pacific Railway Company, and constantly attracts large crowds. There is a sign on the basket telling when and where it was made, but the size of the basket draws hundreds of people to look at it long before they are near enough to read the sign. Itlooks almost grotesque at the first glance, but that is of course due to the fact that we | | are not used to seeing an Indian basket of that size. This basket is of what is known as the ‘“Tee”” weave, which is the most intricate of all the many kinds of weaving done by the Indians. Fine reeds run throueh the basket from tep to bottom, and around them are woven the straws, or rather the strands, of fiber of which the basket is composed. In among these are woven the different colored straws that go to make up the pattern. Each of the straws | is put in ita place as tight as the cotton in a piece of felt, and the pat'ern is as plainly marked as if it were vainted. In shape the pasket is somewhat like a globe, with . the exception that the upper half extends | outward a little. That portion of the work, however, is not exceptional. It is the enormous size of the basket that makes it unusual. This basket was made by a Pomo 1n- dian woman in the village near Ukiah, and the work consumed aimost two years, It was commenced in November, 1895, and finished only a few days ago. Poor woman, when she started to make the basket she intended to eclipse all the pre- vious efforts of the members of her tribe, but she never considered just how big the basket reaily was to be. Possibly she did not think it worth considering, but when she came to remove it her difficulties com- menced, for it was found that the batket was 100 large to be taken out of the house by any of the exits. What was to be done? At last the problem was solved by the present purchaser paying enough for the basket to make it profitable for the woman to tear her house down. This was done, and the basket was soon on its way to San Francisco. The woman realized enough on it to enable her to live in af- fluence the rest of her days, and sheis now looked up to as the millionaire of her tribe. Her basket is the largest ever made of its kind, and the chances are it is the largest that ever will be. A Few Places Left. Joseph P. Smith, director ot the Bureau of American Republics, basissued a bulle- tin, corrected to July 29, giving the names of every person employed in the diplo- matic and consular service of the United States, which shows at a glance the number of appointments Presi- dent McKinley has made since March 4 in the diplomatic and consular service. In the diplomatic service there are 98 places, ranging from embassador to in- terpreter, and including military and naval attaches. Of this number sixty. nine are appointed by the President and require confirmation by the Senate. This does not include the military or naval at taches. President McKinley had up to- July 29 made forty appointments, leaving twenty-nine siill to be dis- pensed. The most important posts now held by persons appointed during former administrations are the Minis. ters to the Argentine Repubiic, $10,000; | Bolivia, $5000; China, $12,000; Costa Rica, $10,000; Denmark, $7500; Ecuador, $5000: Guatemala, $10,000; Liberia, $4000; Nica- { ragua, $10,000; Russia, $17,500; Siam. 1 $5000, and Sweden and Norway, $7500. There are also quite a number of first and second secretaries of legation. There are 1146 persons emploved in the consular service of the United States, and Mr. Mec- becomes more marvelous still the more it is considered. Itis hanging now in the Kinley has named only 161 up to date.— Boston Herald, ¢ Wbere. Where s 0! Swee€th ~Whatmem? Lapovia de mls e AL My girl of Gadyaquil loves lighh e Sae peerfells, 1 Ri! bV ! 0 sa@nos CoN RAVE , ~§_« ings leap and shipe, 1opging dwells. =7 ‘/-/ ° 1:2‘ Twaps, tfie 3oy Sifor Round tfje evenjd vyl 1—3“3 be,asl ased 1¢ \ What’ passions loysrs fe novia de mis supis,c OANDY P fidoe )L"\\' &) <! la