…The sad decline of the tiger…
…Before the coming of the British, the tiger moved fairly freely throughout the continent. This freedom to move kept him in touch, genetically, with tigers everywhere,from eastern Siberia to Turkey. But one other creature was just as mobile and that is the British whose impact on India must have been extraordinary. They moved easily throughout India, aided by a network of resthouses that isolated them from the “verminous populace.” Apparently, many of these buildings still stand today and are monuments to British determination. The front porches held massive stone steps for mounting elephants, camels, and the ox-drawn wagons that moved British goods and administrators before the railroads were completed.
—This strange wooden object was the handmade toy for Tipu Sultan the 18th century ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in India (which today is in the Indian state of Karnataka). Made in 1790 this mechanical toy shows a tiger savaging a life sized British man. The mechanics of the toy lets out groans from the English man and makes his arm move. The tiger lets out grunts. Additionally a flap on the side of the tiger turns up to reveal a keyboard of a small pipe organ with 18 notes.
This toy represents Tipu’s hostility towards the British of the East India Company, a commercial enterprise with its own armies and civil administration, which during the late 18th century was engaged in extending British dominion in India.
Tipu also used the image of the tiger throughout his emblem, applying tiger motifs on the uniforms of his soldiers, on weapons and decorated his palace with them. His throne was supposed to have rested upon a similar life sized tiger covered in gold.—click image for source…
For these great hunters India was measured in terms of whether it was lightly or heavily “shot over,” the density of its forests, the presence of its fevers, the availability and quality of its bearers. From what we know of Indian heat today, we can concede that these Britishers were supermen. They hunted in the worst of the pre-monsoon heat when the vegetation was driest, the woodlands open, the tall grass fallen or burned. In temperatures consistently above 100 F, these nineteenth century diehards slogged up hills and across scorching plains, marching three to five hundred miles in a typical sixty-day shoot.
—The Windsors (the British Royal family) are known both for big game hunting, incl. many large tiger hunts in old India like pictured above, and for heading the WWF. Prince Charles recently took the reigns from Prince Philip. —click image for source…
They carried the ten pound Express rifle, nearly .600 caliber, flush sighted, its two grains of black powder firing a hollow bullet that disintegrated or mushroomed on impact, the blow so powerful that the tiger invariably dropped, stunned, on being hit anywhere. The hunter might also carry a Paradox, a seven pound gun that fired a twelve-bore solid ball accurately about one hundred yards, good for quick-running shots in the forest. ( to be continued)…
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