he first alarm, the natives of the vicinity
assembled with all speed and advanced against her. Irritated by this,
she sprang furiously on the person nearest to her, and wounded him
severely. The immediate attack of the crowd, however, was successful in
rescuing the man from her grasp. On this the tigress, finding herself
hemmed in on all sides, and seeing no way of avoiding the multitude,
except by the river, took to the water, and swam about five miles,
closely pursued by the natives in their boats, until she landed under a
tree in a dockyard. Here she laid herself down, apparently much
fatigued; but before the people in the yard could get their fire arms
ready, she had, in a great degree, recovered her strength. Several shots
were fired at her, and two of them penetrated her body, one of which
lamed her. Rendered desperate by this, she advanced against her new
opponents, and singling out a European gentleman in the yard, who was
provided with a cutlass, she sprang upon him before he could make use of
his weapon; knocked him down with her fore paw, seized his head in her
mouth, bit off a considerable part of the skin of his forehead, and
wounded him in several places. After this, she sprang upon a native,
fractured his skull, and otherwise lacerated him so dreadfully that he
died next day. She then entered a thicket close by, where she was
allowed to remain unmolested. On the morning of the following day, she
had got about a mile further from the water side, and near to a sepoy
village. Here she was surrounded by about a thousand natives, when,
although she was very lame, she sprang furiously on several of them, and
wounded one poor woman so dreadfully, as to occasion her death. A
fortunate shot, however, laid the animal prostrate.

There is an account of a tame tiger which was brought from China in the
Pitt East Indiaman, "who was so far domesticated as to admit of every
kind of familiarity from the people on board. He seemed to be quite
harmless and as playful as a kitten. He frequently slept with the
sailors in their hammocks, and would suffer two or three of them to
repose their heads on his back, as upon a pillow, while he lay stretched
upon the deck. In return for this, he would, however, now and then steal
their meat. Having one day carried off a piece of beef from the
carpenter, the man followed the animal, took it out of his mouth, and
beat him severely for the theft, which punishment he suffered with all
the