A NIGHT IN THE JUNGLE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2453, 31 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A NIGHT IN THE JUNGLE.

A wurn-'.n in Macmillau's Magazine describes an experience in a Burmese jungle. He and a friend had watched one night for a tiger that had not given them a meeting. On the following night they decided to look out for deer. The writer selected for his ambush a nook on a low sloping rock, overlooking a pool round which there were numerous fresh tracks, '• Wearied and sleepy," he says, "I lay back against the rock as a sambhur disappeared for the third time without giving me a shot ; my rifie lay across my knees, and some evil spirit prompted me to open the breech, that it might lie more easily upon them. Tired and indifferent, 1 had dozed off to sleep, when my companion touched my arm lightly and whispered the single word kya (tiger). I awoke with a start, and looked in the direction indicated. Here he was. coining slowly through the mist, straight towards the rock, with the easy rolling swagger a tiger affects when he is on tho prowl. I clutch iny rifle and snap tho breech. Great heavens ! the first time since I owned the weapon, it refuses to close! The tiger off which I have not taken my eyes, has reached the foot of the rock, and, attracted by my movements, deliberately pauses to gaze at tho apparition it, behold. With the usless rifle in my hands I sit facing it, utterly unable to move, and the Karen crou"hed beside me, with his head between his knees and his hands clasped above it, is trembling in every limb. Tho lithe grey-looking form is otdy (> feet from me, and with two short steps can enter the nook aud select either of us at his leisure. Tho fixed stare of tho blazing green eye-balls sesins to paralyze me ; for fully half a minute—it seemed an hour—he stands there motionless, but at length he passes on, still keeping his eyes on mo, until he disappears round tho corner of tho rook a few feet away. Ro lieved of this appalling stare, I breathe moie freely and straining iny eyes in the direction I expect the tiger will take, with desperate eagerness exert all my strength to close the breach of the rifle. I can feel no obstruction—for it is of course too dark to see—but it will not close ; and I pause —to see once moro that mesmeric gaze fixed upon me. Disatisfiod with his first scrutiny, tho tiger has passed around tho rock and returned to repeat it. It was sickening. Helpless and dazed, I sit there blankly returning the steadfast stnro that, so perfectly unnerves mo. This interview lasts longer than tho first; I cannot closo my oyes even if I would. The perspiration streams down my face, and I feel the cold drops trickling slowly down my back. How I ctirso tho brute for his calm dispassionate.gaze 1 llow I curse my own folly in not having selected a tree to shoot from 1 For now, though lam shaking all over, a strange defiant feeling isciojping over mo, and—thank God ! tho tiger once more turns away, and this time quietly takes the path towards the opposite jungles, disappearing into the fognight. Gone ! and I lie back and gave way to a fit of ' cold shivers,' such as I have never felt before, and for half an hour I see nothing but eyes round, fierce, glaring green eyes, wherever I turn my own. No daybreak surely was over so long delayed as that wo now anxiously wait for ; but it, comes at length, and, cramped and shivering, I haste to examine the rifle. A small, but thick fleshy leaf had found its wav into the 'grip' actioijj and, crushed though it was, tho stringy fibres refused to allow tho closo fitting mechanism to work. The Karen who is watching me murmurs in Burmese, 'Witchcraft,' and after the night I have just passed through I am moro than half inclined to agree with him. Curiously enough only two weeks afterwards information was brought that a Karen who had selected that identical rock to shoot sambhur from, had been pounced upon and carried off by a tiger as ho left his hiding place just before day. light. Easton'.s informant added, with grave simplicity : ' Tho white face of your friend was new to tho tiger; on that account he escaped.'"