100 Year Ago: November 1924

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: November 2024

 

This is the 118^th entry in my series of one-hundred-year-old National Geographic abridgements.

 

 

The first article in this month’s issue is entitled “Banishing the Devil of Disease Among the Nashi of Yunnan Province, China” and was written by Joseph F. Rock, Leader of the National Geographic Society’s Yunnan Province Expedition, Author of “Hunting the Chaulmoogra Tree,” in the National Geographic Magazine.  The article has an internal subtitle: “Weird Ceremonies Performed by an Aboriginal Tribe in the Heart of Yunnan Province, China.”  The article contains twenty-six black-and-white photographs, of which eleven are full-page in size.  It also contains a sketch map showing the land of the Nashi with an inset of the greater region, on page 478.  [Note: this was another sketch map that the late Philip Riviere missed in his documentation effort.]

Among deep canyons and on the slopes of hoary ranges reaching heights of 20,000 feet and more, at the western gateway from China into Tibet, lived an aboriginal tribe called Moso by the Chinese.  Far removed from the influence of northern and eastern Chinese civilization, the Moso had lived secluded, shut off from the rest of the world, and only encountering other tribes, inferior to themselves, except for the Tibetans.  While the latter had adopted Buddhism, the Moso, or Nashi, as they called themselves, had adhered to their aboriginal religion of sorcery, which must once have prevailed in Tibet, before it was crowded out by the powerful Lama church.  The Nashi, in 1924, a dwindling tribe of Tibeto-Burman stock, many centuries ago were a powerful people, under a king who had his capital at Yigku, in 1924 the prefectural city of Likiang, in the Chinese province of Yunnan.  As the castles were the strongholds of the Middle Ages in Europe, so the great snow ranges in the center of the Nashi Kingdom were the cradle and rallying point of a gradually vanishing tribe.  Dragon-like, that mighty range, pierced by the Yangtze as by a giant sword, extended toward the borders of Szechwan, crowned by three peaks whose turrets knew only eternal winter.  On the slopes and miniature plains were scattered the hamlets of the Nashi, living happily, as if in the Stone Age.  Purely an agricultural people, the Nashi eked out a precarious existence.  They were first mentioned in the annals of the Tang dynasty about 796 A. D., but vague references were made in the sixteenth century B. C. of a tribe on the western border of China, called Njung.  In 1924, the Tibetans still called the Nashi the Djung.  The Nashi were first subjugated in 778 A. D., but regained their independence a century later, only to fall victims to the hordes of Kublai Khan, in 1253 A. D.  Mongol princes ruled in Yunnan long after they had been expelled from the rest of China.  They were finally driven out by the Ming dynasty, the last Mongol prince committing suicide in 1381.

Behind the village of Nguluko there was a huge limestone wall on which was inscribed the date when the Chinese came to Likiang and the Nashi kingdom, under the native ruler Mu, ceased to exist.  The date was given as 1724 A. D.  All true Nashi were surnamed Ho or Mu, but that they had intermarried was brought out by the fact that several Nashi had the surname of Lee and Chau, which were of Minchia origin, a tribe living to the south.  In 1924, peaceful, but once great warriors; dexterous with the crossbow, which was [in 1924] still in use; feared even by the Tibetans, whose territory they once invaded, the Nashi had become an indolent people.  That did not apply to the women however; they did all the work.  Opium had found its way among the Nashi, and while they were not such inveterate smokers as the Chinese, the poppy was grown as a source of revenue, but heavily taxed.  At Nguluko, a Nashi village on the slopes of the Likiang snow range, the National Geographic Society’s Yunnan Province Expedition had its headquarters.  During two years of personal contact with the Nashi, the author won their confidence by treating their simple ailments, real and imaginary; for graver disorders they called in their priest, known as Tomba, shamanistic sorcerers, who held the belief that evil, unclean spirits, who selected man or animal as their abode, caused illness of the body.  Of the many religious ceremonies among the Nashi which were the author’s privilege to observe, there was one of extraordinary interest.  It took place on a gloomy July evening.  Black clouds had gathered over the Yangtze gorges, with the growl of distant thunder.  The sky grew blacker and the somber clouds laid dense and heavy on the range opposite the snow peaks; absolute quiet reigned before the storm.  As the author laid watching the lightning flashes illuminating the strata of the clouds, there came to his ears the muffled noise of a drum.  At first the beats were slow in following each other, but became quicker and more intense,

The author inquired the reason for that disturbance and was informed that several Tombas had gathered at a neighbor’s house to drive out a devil which had taken possession of the head of the family and had caused him to suffer severely from sore gums and ulceration of the palate.  A few days prior, the author had sent that man away, unable to help him. He had an ulcerated tooth.  Since the author had failed him, he called the priests together and asked them to rid him of that evil spirit which caused all sickness.  The beating of the drums was the announcement of the fact that Tombas had declared war upon the enemy, who was soon to be cornered, evicted, and banished.  The author was permitted to watch, and described the events in detail.  He observed all the ceremonies and wild dances, if not to see the devil depart in person.  The stage setting was ideal.  The hour was 10 o’clock.  The storm drew closer, and with each successive flash of lightning in the east over the Yangtze gorge, the thunder rolled louder and louder, reechoing from the huge limestone walls and crags of ice-crowned Satseto.  In a courtyard paved with irregular limestone boulders a circular contrivance rested on bamboo legs had been erected.  That altar was made of canebrake or bamboo, decorated with braided straw, leaf twigs of a peach tree, and perforated yellow paper.  It was three feet in diameter, and two feet tall.  In the straw band, sticks were placed upright, while in the center was a large branch of a peach tree, in the fork of which was placed a gray bowl holding a devil made of dough enthroned between two burning incense sticks.  Close at hand was a blind Tomba beating a huge drum.  He accompanied his drumming with a weird chant, while his fellow Tombas prepared for the actual performance.  Gongs were beaten and the Tombas appeared in crowns consisting of segments resembling leaping flames.  A large rooster was brought forward by the sick man.  Its head and mouth were washed and it was taken away.  Drumming and chanting continued.

The offering to the spirits of the ancestors was now to be made.  A miniature pinewood coffin was placed at the foot of the altar, while the chief Tomba produced a chick, which he held firmly.  Both the Tomba and the sick man knelt and the latter pelted the chick with rice and peas, some of which were forced down the bird’s throat.  Finally, the chick’s wings were smeared with flour and a quantity forced down its throat until it suffocated.  The death was announced by a Nashi funeral dirge.  After it had been washed and its feathers had been combed the bird was placed in the coffin and covered with rice, red paper, and perforated yellow paper to keep it in the world of shadows.  The lid was placed on, and the sick man pretended to hammer it down.  Grass was used to tie on the lid.  All rose and for ten minutes they chanted a funeral dirge, the music augmented by thunder.  Wine offerings were placed before the coffin and rice and boiled potatoes place on top.  The sick man, kneeling, devoured the offerings.  The next act was initiated by a lively tempo of the drum and gongs.  A bonfire was kindle not far from the altar and a plowshare was heated red.  A stick was placed in front of the altar and a sword laid across it.  A Tomba approached holding two small trees erect, one oak and the other pine.  To the accompaniment of drum and gongs, the oak was executed with one stroke of the sword, after being tapped nine times with the sword.  All music stopped, and quiet reigned for a few moments.  The Tomba handed the pine tree to the kneeling sick man, who chopped it in half after nine gentle taps.  The chief Tomba entered the center room of the house, its walls covered in religious banners.  There, on a table, with piles of books on the left side, an oil lamp was burning.  All attention was given to the gods represented on the banners.  The chief Tomba exchanged his black robe for a blue one, and his crown for a scarlet turban.  In the rear of his sash, he placed four perforated flags, two white, two red, looking like demonic bat wings.

The drums and gongs struck up a satanic tempo, which rapidly increased in violence, while the Tomba, sword now in hand, now between his teeth, now hurled to the ceiling from between his legs, danced as if possessed by the devil.  Once more, the poor rooster appeared.  His head was dipped in wine, his neck and legs were stretched to the rhythm of the devilish music. The gyrating, perspiring Tomba, with a final cross-eyed look heavenward, gave the final jerk to the bird’s neck, accompanied by a long drum roll.  The lifeless bird was placed on the altar, the music became quicker in tempo, while the priest performed a fanatic dance, rolling his eyes, which reflected his emotions.  In his left hand he whirled an iron ring, with iron discs, while with his right he struck a gong at top speed.  The villagers who had gathered in the courtyard remained silent, but were visibly affected by the mysterious rite.  A pot with oil was placed on a brazier in front of the door, while the Tomba danced frantically with flaming strips of paper in his right hand.  Without warning, he leapt into the bonfire and with his bare feet scattered the burning logs across the courtyard.  All that was done to the furious accompaniment of drums, gongs, the rolling thunder, and the flashes of lightning.  With his sword he lifted the glowing plowshare from the fire, placed it on the ground, and danced around it furiously, swishing it with his bare feet, standing on it, and finally licking it, the hissing audible.  He dipped his right hand into the hot oil, holding the pot in his bare left hand, entered the room where the banners were, and emerged with the pot full of blue flames, stirring it with his sword; then dipped his hand into the fiery pot.  With his burning pot and flaming hand, he rushed from room to room, sword in mouth, driving out the devil.  The throng of onlookers became excited, pointing to corners that had yet been purified.  The Tomba rushed to where he was directed, until finally he sprinkled the altar with fire, which was rushed out and burned amid firecrackers.

The flaming Tomba followed the alter, to the accompaniment of beating gongs, drums, and iron rings.  The women swept the courtyard, to be certain nothing remained, after which the doors were closed, and the sick man was supposed to be relieved of the evil one and of his ailment.  The ceremony had hardly finished when the storm broke in earnest, and the village shaken by the terrific peals of thunder, thus concluding this deviltry with an appropriate climax.  Early next morning the author visited the sick man.  To his surprise, the man showed no signs of ever having diseased gums or palate, although the bad tooth remained.  He attributed his cure to the Tombas, who received as a reward grain, flour, bacon, and the equivalent of $2.  That ceremony was called Dzu du.  Since photography was not possible during that performance, the author requested a similar ceremony be done in his courtyard if he could photograph it.  The Tombas agreed.  For hours the harrowing procedure lasted and finally ended when one of the Tombas took the hot plowshare in his mouth and held it between his teeth.  A few days later, the author received an invitation from several Tombas of a neighboring village of Posha Kai to attend a religious ceremony of a different order.  The Nashi in question had bad luck with cattle, and as veterinarians were unknown, he called on the Tombas, who attributed all his troubles to the spirit of his father, who had committed suicide 30 years prior, and who still needed help in the shadow world.  So, an altar was erected consisting of green turf placed on tables.  Bamboo or canebrake was planted in the turf and sticks of pine were erected in the back of the altar, while two poplar trees, covered with paper ornaments, were place behind the whole.  Poplar twigs were also placed in the turf.  When the author arrived, the ceremony had begun.  Five Tombas were dancing around the altar with swords, cymbals, and gongs, while a sixth was beating a drum.

The landlord made offerings to the spirits by throwing wine from a small bowl onto the low roof of the house.  The dance continued for more than two hours, increasing in violence when swords were thrown in the air and sham battles were fought with unseen spirits around the altar.  At noon a recess was called, but the dancing resumed in the afternoon, with a final ceremony to evict the evil spirit in the same fashion as described previously.  The next day, the two Poplar trees were taken to a meadow and a final Dance Performed before them, after which they were burned.  Whether or not the man’s cattle recovered from their ailments, the author could not say.  Among the Nashi, there had survived a religious literature written in most peculiar pictographic symbols.  The writing was undoubtedly of Tibetan origin and of an unknown date.  It resembled certain drawings in pre-Buddhistic religious books of the Bonpo sect.  The Tombas alone were acquainted with that script, and they passed on their knowledge to their sons, Nashi priesthood being hereditary.  There were two forms of writing used – the pictographic symbols and one resembling Chinese.  In one of the Nashi books, it was stated that the Lor gyo gki gyo, represented by a dancing figure with a trident on his head, taught the Nashi to write those books.  The story of the Flood was known to the Nashi.  It was brought out by the translation of a book dealing with the creation of the world, one page of which is transcribed into English below:

Male and female came to live together.  Both went to the mountain to cut firewood; after it had been cut, the wood walked off to the dwelling.  The stones began to speak.  The world was moving about, so nobody knew where there was land.  The rocks and the trees wanted to come down to the plains and began to dispute with the people the land, so the water became angry and steam rose to heaven which made stars and moon visible.  After the water rose to the heaven it returned to earth in enormous quantities covering the world, which made everything grow.  After the descent of the water the rivers were formed as well as the lakes.  After the water receded a house became visible which had not been seen previously.  When they saw the house they copied it and built more.  They taught the people to speak.  They taught the people what could be eaten and what could be drunk.  ShiKia-fu appeared and taught the people to write these books.  [Note: Male and female could be read as Adam and Eve, also ShiKia-fu of the Chinese was the Nashi’s Lor gyo gki gyo.]

Every Nashi village had one or more Tombas and every Tomba had his own place of sacrifice on the outskirts of the village, known as Muang bo da, meaning place of heavenly worship.  It consisted of an oblong pit facing north to south.  The altar, a rock platform, was at the north end.  On the fifth day of the new year the Tombas gathered, with the men of the village, to perform their annual offerings to the gods, especially the evil sky spirits who caused floods, hailstorms, lightning, and thunder.  They also asked for protection from wild beasts and thieves.  On the altar three trees were erected, an oak on each side and a cypress in the center.  The tree to the left represented heaven, the center tree God, that to the right the earth.  A blown-out egg rested on a bamboo tripod.  A large basket of barley represented the father of the family, the small basket the first male child.  Stones, incense sticks, and bowls with wine were placed on the altar as offerings, in front of which were three large incense sticks gaily decorated with orange-colored paper.  When those were lighted, a pig and a rooster were placed between them.  The blood of the sacrificed pig was smeared on the center rock and on the stems of the trees.  The priest chanted from religious books, then, after purifying and blessing the altar and offerings, the pig was cleaned in the pit and placed on the altar.  The gall bladder was hung upon the tree of heaven, the kidney on the tree of God, and the liver, or part of it, on the tree of earth.  The chanting continued; the evil spirit being petitioned to enter the egg.  The ceremony was concluded when the men of the village devoured the offerings.  Women were barred from that place.  Neither were they allowed to listen to the religious chanting or partake of the feast, which lasted for several days.  The lot of the Nashi women was a very hard one, and as the religious books told of the happy days in the shadow world, it was feared they would commit suicide if they listened to the religious recitals.

As evil spirits were supposed to have entered the egg after the ceremony, it was natural that sick Nashi did not eat eggs.  The author often tried to persuade ill people, who had not eaten in days, to eat eggs in milk, but they refused believing they would surely die.  The Nashi had many ceremonies in addition to those described, and each kind of illness required a different altar.  The dancing, however, was apparently the same in all cases.  This was the first by time an attempt had been made to describe the religious ceremonies of the Nashi, a little-known tribe which was fast losing its identity because of the gradual absorption by the Chinese.

 

 

The second article in this month’s issue is entitled “The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg” and was written by Maynard Owen Williams, author of “Latvia, Home of the Letts,” “At the Tomb of Tutankhamen,” “Syria, the Land Link of History’s Chain,” “Adventures with a Camera in Many Lands,” etc., in the National Geographic Magazine.  The article has an internal subtitle which reads: “A Miniature Democratic State of Many Charms Against a Feudal Background.”  It contains twenty-eight black-and-white photographs, seven of which are full-page in size.  One of those full-page photos serves as the frontispiece for this article.  The article also contains a sketch map of Luxemburg, with an inset of its region of Europe, on page 506.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

The people of Luxemburg required some warming up to.  Passionately independent, the Luxemburger inhabited a land plastered with pre-war “Verboten” and post-war “Defendu” signs, of which he was blissfully oblivious.  Not only did he sit tight as to his rights, but he examined the teeth of all authority in a way that made one wonder why he was not more frequently bitten.  A letter signed by the Prime Minister did not help the author enter the town hall during a church celebration.  The concierge would not even read the letter after he saw the signature.  “It’s the Mayor, not the Prime Minister, who rules here,” he proclaimed.  The land was like the people.  One had to truly fraternize with it.  After a 125-mile motor ride in a country only 50 miles long, the author returned disappointed.  Since then, he had tramped hundreds of miles and cycled hundreds more and enjoyed them all; rain or shine.  Survive the first day and one would enjoy, and regret, their last.  The Grand Duchy had an area of 999 square miles, marked down from four times as much, and a population of 270,000, also below that of former days.  Ligurian, Celt, Gaul, Belgian, Treverian, Roman, Frank, Vandal, Hun, Merovingian, Carolingian, and Norman had all had their part in the evolution of the people.  For ages, Luxemburg was an inland Gibraltar and a mighty fortress.  Raise and raze was the constant game.  In 1867, the fortress was dismantled. It was no blow to the pride of the people.  Far from it.  The guard that marched out was Prussian.  Not only was the formerly forbidden city open to all, but it began to grow outward.  Beautiful parks had taken the place of the old fortifications.  The Adolphe Bridge, spanning the gorge of Petrusse, made the approach to the former fortress too simple.  The encircling gorge was still there, but the Gibraltar became merely another bit of the plateau.  One entered Luxemburg in a limousine without realizing what a commanding position the former fortress held.

As the author was writing, and an aviator looping the loop outside his window, he realized that, ten years prior, two soldiers guarded the door night and day; six telephone lines were centered there; and, from August to October 1914, the German Minister of War sat where the author was writing.  The most interesting features of Luxemburg were down in the crooked gorge of the Petrusse, or Alzette.  Nothing within the compared with the sensation of walking under the very cliffs on which it stood.  The author knew of no urban view from a European railway so remarkable as that of Luxemburg from the Liege line; but it was a mild foretaste of what one felt when at the base of the city’s rock perch.  From a distance, Luxemburg was merely a huddle of homes, but from below, it asserted its majesty and made one sense it.  Within the town, the Cathedral was the most important edifice.  The Renaissance entrance was ornately decorated with fierce lion heads, cherubim, and saints.  The interior, whose shadowy distance ended in the wonder-working Maria Consolatrix, which made Luxemburg another Lourds, conveyed no impression of unity.  In the Bibliotheque Nationale, which occupied some old-world rooms high up in the Athenee, the librarian apologized for the lack of space.  The visitor disturbed a concierge to enter that locked public library, and one man was the only other person in the reading room during the author’s forty minutes there.  The feature which linked the capital with its state was the open-air market in the Place Guillaume, where dog-drawn carts were seen and where vegetables were sold from carriages which the women wheeled in from the country or the station.  Luxemburg had lovely roses, and exported new varieties to many lands.  In the valley gorges writhing around the base of the capital were the industrial suburbs, devoted to making gloves, cloth, and beer.  Beside the stream, the women laundered billows of cloth.

In their season, white and purple lilacs overhung the narrow streams and semicircular arches were completed to circles below precipices.  Those who thought of Luxemburg as a gay setting for Viennese light opera would be surprised to know that the one theater, formerly a church, was closed except for a brief Court season.  The largest of the “movie” houses died of malnutrition and the city’s “gay life” rattled noisily around in two or three lowly cabarets.  Music was bountiful and usually well provided, though noisy motor cars usually disturbed performances.  The Luxemburg motorist’s ideal was to be heard as well as seen.  Your true Luxemburger was a man of simple pleasures, who would rather discuss a bottle of wine instead of any thesis one might propose.  His casino was a temple to Dionysus rather than Fortuna.  Lady Luck had few charms for him.  It was the graceful wineglass that put the luxe in his Luxemburg, though beer was his common drink.  His hearty, Janus-faced appetite was French in hunger and German in thirst.  What the Sokol was to Czechoslovakia, the Roman Catholic Church was to the Grand Duchy.  It was the chief unifying force in a land whose non-Catholic elements were negligible.  During the Octave, extended from eight to fifteen days, each church assembled bands and banners, and went to the capital to honor the Virgin and beseech her aid.  The two great annual celebrations were the Octave Procession, in Luxemburg, the fifth Sunday after Easter, and the Dancing Procession, on the Tuesday of Pentecost.  No photograph could suggest the color and scope of the Octave Procession, in which thousands of simple folks, mostly in black, chant their litanies; in which bright banners, carried in the line of march, vied with those hung across the narrow streets lined with rows of Christmas trees.  Scores of young boys, temporarily subdued in scarlet and lace, accompanied the figures of the Holy Family or of Maria Consolatrix.

There was a long double line of first communicants – the boys in dark suits, the girls like juvenile brides in veil and coronet.  Tiny maids, wearing gold crowns and carrying gold flowers, looked angelic.  The Dancing Procession at Echternach was unique.  It started as a religious dance, but at the time of our Revolution, the youth were adding more into it than the Church could tolerate.  Pilgrims, the dancing-desire aroused by the procession, retired to cabarets to drink, and continue dancing.  The Archbishop of Treves forbade both music and dance, and threatened to forbid the procession itself.  Later, the Austrian Emperor canceled the whole performance, on paper.  The dance went on.  A hard-headed Hollander had the dance changed from Tuesday to Sunday, to save a work day, but the people resisted.  Back to Tuesday it came.  Each year, the dance attracted more and more visitors, but was losing its character.  The devout did not like to dance for tourists; and the young folk, encouraged to dance by the Church, did not take it seriously enough.  At seven in the morning, a Sabbath stillness was on Echternach.  The slightly arched bridge over the Sure, across which the procession was to come, was softened by mist.  Then the crowds appeared.  Trampers came in from Germany.  Apple-cheeked frauleins strode in.  Finding a place by the 60 stairs to the parish church of Peter and Paul, the author awaited the procession.  In the massed streets a lane began to form.  Then came priests, banners, acolytes, and hundreds of men in solemn “Sunday clothes,” chanting a litany.  Down the street, a band began to play.  Then, the author saw young men and girls joined by handkerchiefs and dancing gaily.  To the right, the solemn litany chanted by slowly moving forms in black; to the left, the blaring of bands and the countless white shirts and bright dresses rising and falling in irregular waves.  There were hundreds of old women in black bonnets.

Through the market place, in front of the medieval Dingstuhl, or town hall, the procession made its way.  The windows were full of wealthy visitors who had rented reserved seats above the din and dust of the crowd.  Into the vast grounds of the old cathedral the motley procession danced, and into the interior of the former abbey church.  Three hours of dance, noise, pomp, and perspiration were over.  In the market place, giant swings began to bob back and forth.  A merry-go-round, run by a boy-powered treadmill, was busy.  The café held overflow meetings in the square.  Crackers and candy were selling fast.  Balloons and squawkers were “quieting” tired children.  Boys sucked sweet syrups out of tiny bottles through glass straws.  When twilight came, the author wandered around the town alone.  In the cathedral, country folk were still streaming past the marble casket.  Each pilgrim passed up a rosary or a candle to be touched to the sarcophagus of Willibrord, the English saint.  On the author’s return to the capital, after a tramp through the country, a friend asked him what he saw.  “Cows and castles, grass and flowers, forests and winding streams,” the author replied.  And the friend was pleased.  There was no outstanding beauty spot in the Grand Duchy.  Each cherished scene had its champions.  The whole was greater than any of its parts; the state more lovely than any site within it.  Vianden, with its fine old ruins; Clervaux, with its picturesque chateau going to the dogs, geese, and goats, and its Benedictine abbey luxuriously growing on the heights; Remich, through which the Romans were the first to enter and the last to leave; Mondorf, whose waters cured everything but baldness; Berdorf, where the Christian altar was build upon a Roman temple; Junglinster, with its fine frescoes and funerary stones in the village church; Diekirch, whose brewery overawed its schools and churches; Esch-sur-Sure, with its crimson geraniums hung in bright-green baskets against salmon-pink walls – all had their devotees.

None of them appealed to the author as the land itself, behind whose placid beauty there was a peculiar fascination.  He left New England when still young, but there was something about the Ardennes that carried him back to Green Mountains days.  On the landscape which a month before had been a symphony of greens, broken only by the purple of plowed land, the chin-high grain was turning sere, and scythe or mowing machine had left its mark along the rounded hills.  In a hollow, there was an acre or so of woods, brilliantly green after the rain of the Glorious Fourth.  The rough road wound down past a vegetable and flower garden in which a rose arch flaunted its beauty.  There was a small steeple like that at a Virginia crossroads.  A farm wagon, homeward bound under the sunset sky, rattled along with the hame-chains jingling to the stride of the heavy Belgian horse.  Trees loaded with cherries, red and black lined the road.  Small boys were out on the branches or shinnying down the trunk, with clown smiles outlined in fruit stains left by juicy fingers.  A young girl before her door stroked the backs of two tame goslings.  Past an unexpected chateau a herd of spotted cattle slowly filed and in the barn a cow called to be milked.  The scene was material for an artist, at first hand.  Two airplanes hurried homeward toward Metz, whose cathedral towers the author could not see due to the wisps of white smoke from the never-idle steel mills.  The 32,000 industrial workers, many of them alien, gave the Grand Duchy its leadership in iron and steel, of which it produced more per capita than any other land.  The author had circled Dalheim several times, but had never stood on the site of the Roman camp.  The monument set up in 1855, was a massive square column, atop which a heavy-bodied eagle practiced vaudeville stunts on a gilded ball.  The countryside, never twice the same, had a general uniformity, except for the regions where bare cliffs inspired the chateau-builders. 

Throughout the country, the women worked the fields wearing sunbonnets.  Young children were taken out into the fields, sometimes in baskets strapped to their mother’s back.  During the day, the towns were almost deserted.  The north of the country was reputed barren, the south fertile; yet haycocks were massed as high and as close near Asselborn as near Dudelange or near Aspelt.  The first mowing machine the author saw was on the Oesling plateau.  The general differences remained, but the author doubted if many locals, robbed of specific landmarks, could tell which part of the country they were.  Nature decked the undulating landscape with one flower after another.  In May were the apple blossoms, then came the pink-and-white horse-chestnut and white and purple lilacs.  When speaking of the quiet beauty of Luxemburg, the author favored the genet.  Never had he been so stirred by color as on one hot day when, topping one of the highest shoulders of the Grand Duchy, he wandered down to the great brown mass of Bourscheid chateau through square miles of glowing gold.  For hours he trilled over the wondrous spectacle and for days returned.  One had but to point a camera at a huge bank of genet, motionless, to have it quiver with fear or enthusiasm.  If the sight of sheep grazing on green slope aroused no love of the open; if the sound of whetstone sweeping a thick blade or the swish of a scythe through heavy grass struck no responsive chord; if the “scent of new-mown hay” was a phrase rather than a vivid sensation; if soft slope after soft slope shading away to blue haze did not grip you, the Grand Duchy will not appeal.  No one expected lasting fidelity of the traveler.  He might even be so odious as to compare unfavorably the features of some half-forgotten love with those of a new favorite.  The chief boast of the wealthier locals was the triangle country between Echternach and the Mullerthal, known as “Little Switzerland.”  That tangle of forest, steam, and rock was worthy to visit as a magic land of trolls.

One of the favorite outlooks near Echternach was the Bildcheslay, where one crossed the main cliff to a detached tower of rock and looked down, past Cleopatra’s needle, on the city of St. Willibrord.  One of the quaintest bits of the Grand Duchy was Esch-sur-Sure, which clambered over a tower-fanged jaw of rock around which the river swung in a graceful curve.  It used to be called Esch-in-the-Hole, because there was no road leading to it.  A short tunnel enabled the town to exploit itself, and, in 1924, the stream of automobiles on Whitsunday was a procession.  On the abandoned carriage road to Eschdorf, the author found a lot of young humans and goats being kids together.  Eschdorf occupied cloudland and enjoyed a wonderful view across the rolling elevation, which, a little to the south, reached the culminating ridge of the Grand Duchy, 1,827 feet above the sea.  The highlands constituted the “dorf” belt, some on the hill, some in the valley, but for the most part a farming family.  Not so the “ange” towns.  They were miners and refiners of steel.  They were full of steel workers in iron-floored serpent pits.  At Dudelange was centered the social service work of the “Arbed,” shorthand for Acieries Reunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange.  The directors took great pride in the children’s home and hospital.  The author enjoyed his tour.  In 1794, Dudelange was sacked and the inhabitants massacred by French troops on whom the villagers had fired, thinking they were marauders.  According to a book on Luxemburg, a mass was said there on May 17, for the souls of those slain.  The author was in Dudelange on May 17, and could find no evidence of such a mass, and no one seemed to know about the massacre.  It was in Remich, bowered in Moselle vineyards, that the first German shot hit neutral territory.  Too late for lunch, the author had taken chocolate at a neat pastry shop.  The hostess pointed to a hole in the window and told the tale of how it was made.

The day before the Great War started, the Germans ordered that no lights be lit. The matron of the shop lit a candle and the bullet, shot from a mile away, passed between her and her candle.  On the author’s next visit to Remich, the author hastened to the shop to take a photo of the Matron next to the window. She told him that the story was untrue, she and her husband were in bed when the shot rang out.  The stories of our own doughboys in Luxemburg would fill a book.  “They know the country better than we do,” said a pretty girl in Diekirch, telling of the dances she had with an American colonel in one of the chateaux beside the Sure.  She told of finding them burning some books they could not carry home.  She   brought home.  In Vianden, sitting at tea one rainy afternoon, the author read a book left behind by one of the yanks.  In Napoleon’s day, chateaux were sheep.  Vianden Castle was then habitable.  Her Royal Highness Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxemburg, and Prince Felix received the author in the Grand Ducal chateau at Colmar Berg.  There, among the priceless crystals and porcelains, tapestries and heirlooms of the House of Nassau, they welcomed him as simply and as warmly as had anyone in the land.  Prince Felix described The Geographic as the best magazine he knew, and asked the author about his camera.  Her Royal Highness asked the author about the birth and growth of the National Geographic Society, of which both she and Prince Felix were members.  The little prince and princess joined the royal couple to have some pictures taken.  Democratic sovereigns of a democratic land, those two were ever growing in popularity as rulers and first citizens of a tiny land.  When beech groves, touched with autumn frosts, rival the golden glory of genet, the author hoped to come again to Luxemburg, beside whose still water the soul was restored.

 

 

The third item listed on this month’s cover is entitled “Flashes of Color Throughout France and has Gervais Courtellemont in the byline.  It is not an article, but “28 Autochromes Lumiere” cited on the cover.  Mr. Courtellemont is the photographer.  These “Twenty-Eight Illustrations in Full Color” are true color photographs and appear on sixteen plates numbered I through XVI in Roman numerals and representing pages 529 through 544 in the issue.  Four of the photos are full-page in size, the rest are two per plate.

Here is a list of the photos’ caption titles is listed along with the plate number:

• “The Sardine Fleet in the Harbor of Concarneau” – Plate I
• “The Wood Market in a Pyrenean Village” – Plate I
• “The Calvary of Plougastel” – Plate II
• “A Breton Family Threshing Buckwheat” – Plate II
• “A Marriage Procession in the Province of Berry” – Plate III
• “The Pig Market at Quimperle” – Plate III
• “Biarritz on the Bay of Biscay” – Plate IV
• “The Azure mediterranean, the Rose-hued Rocks and Verdant Pines Collaborate in Composing One of nature’s Scenic Masterpieces Along the French Riviera” – Plate V
• “Wearing the Costume of the Province of Berry” – Plate VI
• “Musical Fishermen of Douarnenez: Brittany” – Plate VI
• “Looking Toward the Chapel of Les Invalides Across the Tomb of Napoleon” – Plate VII
• “Battle Flags Hanging in the Invalides Chapel Adjacent to Napoleon’s Tomb” – Plate VII
• “Before a Shrine at Plougastel” – Plate VIII
• “Her Home is Pont L’Abbe” – Plate VIII
• “A Souvenir Shop in Nice” – Plate IX
• “Restored to France – an Alsatian Girl” – Plate IX
• “Where the wheel of Fortune forever Spins – Monte Carlo” – Plate X
• “The Peninsula of Monaco” – Plate XI
• “Collecting Grapes in Alsace” – Plate XII
• “The Towers and Battlements of Carcassonne” – Plate XII
• “The Harbor of Concarneau (See Also Plate I) – Plate XIII
• “Wealth Puts into Port at Nice” – Plate XIII
• “The Hunt at Chambord” – Plate XIV
• “Hounds Waiting in a Compact Mass for the Hunt to Begin” – Plate XIV
• “Autumn in the Forest of Fontainebleau” – Plate XV
• “When Frost Plays the Role of Master Colorist” – Plate XV
• “The Rock City, Fortress, Prison and Abbey of Mont Saint Michel Views Its Own Reflection in the Encircling Sea” – Plate XVI
• “Flower Culture Along the Mediterranean Coast” – Plate XVI

 

 

The third and last article (fourth item) in this month’s issue is entitled “Tiger-Hunting in India” and was written by Brigadier General William Mitchell, Assistant Chief, U. S. Army Air Service.  The article contains thirty black-and-white photographs, of which six are full-page in size.  The article also contains a sketch map of India on page 550.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

The author and his wife went to India not only to observe the changes that had occurred since his last visit, 23 years prior, at the conclusion of our Philippine War, but also to visit places of interest, see something of the military air and ground forces, visit some old friends and acquaintances, and then have a good tiger and big game hunt.  Darjeeling was their first destination.  They were blessed with perfect weather, such as was seldom accorded the traveler.  The mighty ridge of the Himalayas was denuded of clouds for their inspection.  The tremendous mountain mass radiated out from Kinchinjunga, 28,000 feet in height, with more than ten peaks over 22,000 feet altitude to right and left, furnished the greatest mountain panorama in the world.  From an elevation called Tiger Hill, they beheld the rising sun over the towering peaks, with Mount Everest, the highest eminence in the world, peeping at them 124 miles away, though the rose light of the perfect, still, and icy-cold dawn.  It was one of the clearest days of the year, and they could plainly see the pass into Tibet, whose floor was 18,000 feet above the sea.  At that time, an expedition was being assembled at Darjeeling to climb Everest.  The author thought how easy it would be to just fly an airplane to Everest, take photos, temperature readings, notes on wind direction and force, and even land supplies for climbers.  Lhasa, across the Himalayas, was only as far from Darjeeling as Washington, D. C. was from New York.  The author thought how easy it would be to fly there and call on the Dalai Lama within a couple of hours.  In 1924, it required a month to get there.  The ascent of the foothills gave them an opportunity to note changes in the character of the people as they climbed.  Leaving the morbid, undernourished, begging Bengali at the lower levels, they met alert, sturdy, little Nepalese.  Those attractive people had their own kingdom at the base of the mountains.  The Nepalese made excellent soldiers and furnished recruits for the British Gurkha battalions, which were of the highest quality.

At the higher levels, the Tibetans were encountered – big, ruddy-faced, rollicking individuals, both men and women.  With long, Mongolian eyes, pigtails, firm step, and confident manner, they were a great contrast to the people of the plains.  Descending from the mountains, they visited Benares and the sacred Ganges, the place near there where Buddha preached, and the various localities so well known to tourists.  Then they went to Agra.  A bright new moon lighted their first view of the wonderful Taj Mahal, while cool, bracing weather accompanied them to the palaces and haunts of the Great Mongols.  From Agra, a day’s trip took them to Delhi, that eternal city where capital after capital, for the rule of Hindustan, had been established by the conquerors.  The ruins of no less than eight of those remained, and a brand new one was being built, equipped, and populated completely by the British.  [See “Through the Heart of Hindustan,” November 1921, National Geographic Magazine.]  Lord Reading, the Viceroy, lived in a small establishment, called Vice-Regal Lodge, pending the occupancy of the new palace in the capital.  The author first met Lord Reading in the spring of 1919, when he took passage on the Aquatania, then a troopship, on which the author had command of the troops, numbering nearly 9,000 men.  He was then Ambassador of Great Britain to the U. S.  He was one of the greatest enthusiasts on tiger-hunting the author had ever met.  He had done little hunting and shooting before coming to India, but since his arrival he had become quite adept and had killed two of the great beasts.  Tiger-hunting was regarded as a royal sport, and he who bagged that master of the jungle was looked upon as a public benefactor.  The number of people killed each year by wild animals and reptiles in India was appalling.  The jungle beasts of India were very ferocious and the people were practically unarmed.  In the Central Provinces the number of reported deaths was 1,791 in 1923.  Snakes killed 1,133; tigers, 352; panthers, 114; bears, 15; wolves, 115; hyenas, 4; and other animals, 58.

Whenever tigers became incapable of providing for their living by killing wild animals and cattle, they attacked human beings.  Panthers were much the same.  Tigers had been known to cause whole districts to be evacuated.  One beast caused 13 villages to be evacuated and 250 square miles thrown out of cultivation.  Another stopped work on a public road for many weeks.  Panthers were much given to going into villages and smashing in the native houses, and in the outlying districts mother never left their children alone due to the menace.  Bears did not kill so many people, but they tore up and disfigured great numbers.  In 1921, 40,035 rupees were spent as rewards for killing jungle animals in the British provinces, and a total of 2,510 were slain.  In the Nerbudda Division of the Central Provinces, 61 tigers, 262 panthers, and 44 bears were killed in 1923, while in the Nagpur Division, 67 tigers, 154 panthers, and 68 bears were killed.  The author’s party hunted in both of those districts.  A great deal of preparation had to precede a tiger hunt.  Hunting rights in the native states were jealously guarded by their princes and no stranger could hunt without permission.  The Viceroy had made tentative arrangements to go shooting in the Central Provinces, and the governor of that part of India, had set aside one of the best blocks and kept it unhunted for a long time in expectation of the occasion.  Lord Reading said he could not go, but changed his mind at the last minute.  That mean he would hunt in the best block.  The governor allowed the author to hunt in the next best block.  With that promise, they returned to Calcutta to outfit their expedition.  While in Calcutta, they were also invited to the domain of the Maharaja of Surguja, the ruling prince of one of the native states in central India.  That place was said to contain more tigers than any other locality and its ruler was reputed to be the greatest tiger hunter in India.  After events proved that to be correct.

Surguja was about 35 years old, of the Raiput or military caste of the Hindus – great sportsmen and hunters.  He explained that his capital laid 120 miles from the railway, that it was inhabited by very primitive people, and that they would have to make their own arrangements for sleeping quarters, the preparation of food, and the handling of water.  Being Hindu, the Maharaja could not dine, drink, or entertain under the same roof with anyone from a different caste.  He would have a guest house placed at their disposal, stocked with European stores.  He also arranged for several camps in the jungles, for hundreds of beaters, and for an assembly of his 60 hunting elephants.  Upon his return from calling on the Maharaja, the author found a telegram from the governor saying that the North Manli Block had been assigned to him for immediate occupancy.  The chief forest officer and his wife would accompany Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell into the jungle.  Having obtained their stores and equipment in Calcutta, they set out for the town of Itarsi, about 900 miles to the west.  Their outfit included the usual stores plus the small “doolies,” or cooking utensils, so much in vogue in India.  Their armament consisted mainly of American repeating rifles.  The author had one double-barreled rifle he had purchased in Belgium.  Had he known more on hunting in India beforehand, the author would have brought more of those two-barreled guns.  They also had two shotguns.  Arriving at Itarsi, they were met by a British official who drove them to the guest house in Hoshangbad.  They had a pleasant night on the banks of the Narbada River, the great stream of central India.  Along it banks were the huts of the natives, while the small islands were the home of birds.  The river was infested with crocodiles, the “mugger” of the Hindus.  Returning to Itarsi, they found carts awaiting their baggage and equipment, horses for the forester and the author, and an elephant for the ladies.

There were many mysteries and superstitions about elephants.  The mahouts, or drivers, had a special elephant language.  All sorts of luck marks were looked for on them.  An elephant had about the same life span as a human; so, a mahout might remain with one animal all his life.  It ate for about 23 out of 24 hours, and one or more men were employed solely to keep it in food.  Whenever the animal approached water, it filled its trunk and conveyed it to its stomach.  If it became hot, the water was regurgitated and sprayed over the back, giving the rider an unexpected shower.  Whenever the ground was marshy, or a hill slippery, the elephant used its trunk to feel its way along.  Every elephant had its own gait, both in speed and ease of riding.  At a signal from its mahout, it would remove projecting limbs with its trunk or push trees a foot thick out of the way.  They were the best means of transportation away from roads and railways, and, when trained to hunt tigers, were indispensable in high grass for following wounded beasts.  Soon they left all signs of civilization.  The little cultivation they encountered was very crude slash and burn.  The few villages were of mud walls and thatched roofs.  The people were of the Dravidian race, aborigines of the country, called Gonds.  They were a cheery and pleasant lot, good hunters, sturdy, honest, and truthful.  They were surprised to find the jungles so open, much like Rock Creek Park, in Washington.  The weather that time of year was like that of central Texas in April and May.  As they went along the road, there were signs of small deer.  Finally, Jollye, the forest officer, sighted a chinkara, a small antelope.  After a stalk of 200 yards, the author shot it.  With its nice little horns, it made a nice trophy, while its flesh was excellent eating.  They kept on through the jungle, while Jollye regaled them with tales of different wild animals, their habits, and methods of hunting them.  Frequently they saw tracks, but none of tigers or panthers.

They were accompanied from village to village by a headman bearing a spear, whose duty it was to see that wayfarers reached the next village safely, when his responsibility ceased.  Finally, they arrived at their camp, near the little village of Sukot.  Their tents were pitched under wide spread mango trees.  It was a wonderful place and served as a fine introduction to the Indian jungles.  After a good meal and rest, they got out their shotguns for a peacock and jungle-fowl hunt along a river about a mile away.  Twenty or so beaters accompanied them.  The chief hunter, called the shikari, put them on stands about 100 yards apart, perpendicular to the river bank.  The beaters advanced slowly, striking their ax-handles with a stick, which produced a clicking sound.  Soon the game began to come, beautiful gray jungle fowl.  Following closely came the peafowl, both cocks with their long colorful tails and peahens in more somber apparel, all very gorgeous, however.  Those birds were about the size of our own wild turkeys, but much better fliers.  As one never knew what might come out of a beat, ball cartridges were always taken.  On that day, some of the large monkeys, called banda by the natives, charged right through Mrs. Mitchell’s position.  The next day, they proceeded into the forest that had been reserved for them.  The tracks of game increased as they rode along and they found plenty of signs of sambur, a large stag.  Occasionally, the found tracks of the tiger himself crossing their road.  The author was surprised at the profusion of signs of all sorts of game.  At the turn in the road, they thought they saw a wild dog.  Wild dogs hunted in large packs and were very destructive to game; so, at every opportunity they where killed.  In this case, the dog turned out to be a jackal, which the author killed.  They arrived at the Chura resthouse in good season.  An arch of welcome had been erected and all the shikaris of the village received them.  They had many stories to tell of the number of tigers in the vicinity.

That morning, they had tied out eight buffaloes, to act as tiger bait, at points where a road and watercourse crossed, as tigers usually followed one or the other of those.  A tiger, to all intents and purposes, was a huge cat, acting as a house cat would if he were many times larger.  The tiger avoided a well-armed man, and was next to impossible to stalk on foot, except during the dry season at a water hole.  If a tiger was wounded or brought to bay, his ferocity was something terrifying, awe-inspiring.  He did not lie down and wait for his adversary to come to him, but, if a spark of life remained, he stalked his pursuer, usually attacking him from behind or when least expected.  The tiger needed stealth, for all his food was stalked and killed in full vigor; a tiger would not touch a dead animal.  He pounced on his prey, knocking it down with a stroke of his paw; then, while holding down its head, he rolled the body over, breaking its neck.  He then removed the entrails and only ate the clean meat.  Having eaten, the tiger drank water, and then lied down in the thick jungle to sleep near the remainder of his kill, to which he returned the following night.  Often, he covered it up with leaves and twigs to prevent vultures, hyenas, or jackals from disturbing it.  A thorough knowledge of the habits of the tiger and the locality was essential to the successful location of the gun positions.  A tiger had a regular beat, over which he hunted, and he usually made a circuit in from five to eight days, eating. Perhaps, several animals of various kinds in that time.  The man-eaters were usually old tigers who, due to their waning faculties, were no longer able to kill forest game.  When once they had found how easy it was to kill man, they never stopped.  They watched their eight buffaloes and awaited developments.  Buffaloes were used for bait instead of cows because cows were sacred.  This was the mating season for the tigers, which rendered them irregular in their habits.  They waited impatiently for a kill.

At last, the day arrived.  None of the buffaloes in the immediate vicinity had been touched, although tigers had passed several at very close range. Two buffaloes that were tied up about 10 miles away had not been heard from.  A leopard had killed one of their baits, and they thought that they would have to settle on shooting it.  They were giving instruction on the erection of the blind over the leopard’s kill when a runner arrived and reported that there had bee a kill on a river about ten miles away.  The message had been relayed through by runners every three miles.  As their kill was so far away, they made all haste, to have time to beat before dark.  They sent their guns, ammunition, and food by runners.  Upon arrival at the river, they were surprised to see beaters amassing from the countryside.  Old “Jungle,” a local Gond, was one of the Government, forest guards.  He sent out messengers through the country for all men to rendezvous at the river and cross for the beat.  Some 80 men were rounded up, all of whom were accustomed to hunting tigers, and had been since they were boys, as were their fathers before them.  They were always willing to help kill one of those deadly enemies.  “Jungle” sent the beaters off in one direction and took them in another.  After traveling a mile of jungle, they came to a wide bed of river, quite dry at that season.  “Jungle” selected the lucky trees for their tree perches.  Jollye was placed first, in the second-best position, in a very large tree.  The author was taken down river about 200 yards and placed in a smaller tree, opposite a nala (watercourse), where “Jungle” explained the tigers were sure to come.  One would come straight toward the author’s front and the other from his right.  They both would head for the nala directly behind him.  As “Jungle” left them, he cautioned them to look out for more than one tiger.  As the author was a new hand at the game, he was advised to take his gunbearer up into the blind with him.

They swung up into their blind, which was well covered with foliage and a bit hard to see out of in certain directions.  The author had a Springfield rifle, a marvelously accurate weapon at all ranges.  Jollye found a double-barreled rifle to be better.  In addition, the author had an 11-millimeter Mauser.  At the bottom of the tree, at Jollye’s suggestion, the author placed his 20-guage shotgun, loaded; so that if he had to come down unarmed and was attacked by a wounded animal, he would not be helpless.  Men in trees were posted on either side of them.  It was their duty to make noise and turn the tiger, in case it left the intended direction.  In addition, they put a boy up a small tree about 50 yards back of their blind to observe any game that had been shot, either killed or wounded. Suddenly the shouts of the beaters in the distance reverberated down the quiet river bed.  No one was to be seen, and the only sound was the ever-increasing din of the approaching beaters.  Soon, a tremendous shout came from the beaters, accompanied by wild screams and a great deal of pounding on trees.  To the right, one of the chief hunters crossed the river toward the beat, in the direction the tigers were supposed to be.  He began pounding on a large bamboo to keep the tigers from breaking in that direction.  The author was looking to his right when his gun-bearer grabbed his arm and pointed to the left.  A great tiger had broken from the jungle at top speed on the opposite side and was coming straight at them.  On it came through a pool of water two feet deep.  The thick foliage interfered with the author’s vision and he had to stand up to get his shot.  Enraged growls came with every stride.  To the top of a rocky outcrop the tiger jumped, not more than 50 yards away, and, at that instant, the author fired.  The beast was knocked down flat in its stride; but, without losing speed, it was up with a terrific roar and on again.  Quickly, the author loaded and shot again.  The tiger went down again, but the second shot missed.

On it went, up a steep bank, and again the author fired, but with no apparent result.  The tiger had now seen him.  He could see its face plainly, depicting rage, fearlessness, and pain.  In an instant, it was at the top of the river bank above the author and turned, roaring, to face him.  At that moment, he fired his fourth shot.  Down it went, out of sight beyond the bank, along the edge of the little nala that it had been trying so hard to get, to escape under the covering banks.  The growls ceased and all was still.  They we sure that more tigers were in the beat, but they could not tell whether they were still coming their way.  Their doubts were soon dispelled when a tiger appeared along the opposite bank, trotting slowly through the brush and trees, his tail, held high, swinging from side to side, like an angry cat.  The author could not shoot toward the beaters.  The quarry disappeared for a few minutes; then suddenly broke, at top speed, for the author’s side of the river and about 200 yards to his right.  Again, he had to stand up to shoot.  He missed, and it disappeared.  He thought it was gone for good, when suddenly he heard a roar behind him, not 20 feet away, speeding by the blind.  He to a shot and either missed or barely touched it, and it was gone.  The beaters now came from the opposite river bank and were stopped by Jollye until they could determine whether either or both tigers were dead, wounded, or had escaped.  The greatest care was necessary to avoid fatal accidents.  They examined the positions of the cat for the first and second shots.  They were tracing up the cut bank when the boy posted in behind the author’s blind called that the tiger was lying in the nala and had not moved for a long time.  They could find no indication that the author hit the second tiger; so, the took their guns just in case.  They found the first tiger stretched at full length in the water with its teeth clutched in the root of a tree, a death grip.  They threw some stones with no reaction; then the author jumped down the bank and gave its tail a hard pull.

She was stone-dead, a fine big tigress in splendid condition.  Probably three tigers had broken back through the beaters; so that at least four, if not five, tigers had been in the beat.  The beaters improvised a litter out of the author’s blind and tied to long poles, so that 15 to 20 of them could carry it.  After making a bed of leaves so as to not injure the coat, the tiger was rolled onto it and tied down.  They started out over the river bed for the carts.  It was getting dark and they made haste to get the horses and start back to the resthouse.  The author was excited and his only regret was that his wife was not with him for the kill.  He learned many things about tiger hunting.  His Springfield was insufficient, he needed to use a heavier rifle for the hunt.  The double-barreled, .400 or greater caliber rifle was the thing.  The author was astonished at the strength, the beauty, and the size of the tigers.  Jollye told him many tales of tigers, as they journeyed homeward through the dark jungle.  They reached the resthouse about ten that night the women had gone to the panther kill earlier.  The panther had not returned, but a hyena came and devoured it.  Early the following morning, the tigress reached them by bullock cart.  It was best to bring the carcass to the camp for skinning.  They had sent away 12 miles for a chamar, a skinner.  He had very sharp knives of all description.  He was delighted with the tiger and immediately started to work.  The skin was removed perfectly, in an incredibly short time.  There were many superstitions connected with tigers.  The fat, when made into oil, was a cure for rheumatism; shoulder bones were lucky charms; and one could tell the animals age by counting the lobes in the liver.  To the whiskers, all sorts of magic were imputed.  Ground teeth were used as medicine, the claws imparted strength to the owner, and a piece of dried flesh hung around a baby’s neck protected it from wild beasts.  Great care had to be taken to preserve the skin in that climate – alum, salt, and arsenical soap.

The following night, they were treated to a native dance.  To the beat of drums, they danced and sang ballads telling of their hunts, their vocations, and other events.  The dance steps were accompanied by a peculiar sucking sound made by placing the left hand under the right armpit, then lifting the right arm up and down rapidly.  None of their other buffalo were killed during the three days they remained there, but the author shot a fine sambur with his .450 double-barreled rifle, which he used from then on for tigers.  From their Churna resthouse they rode over to Supplai resthouse, close beside another Gond village, where they were guests of Lt. Hammond, of the British army.  There, they encountered their first Indian bears, about the size of black bears.  They were covered with long, fluffy hair, to protect them from bees.  Stationed in a blind during a beat, the author saw two bears coming toward him.  It took him eleven shots, all hits, from his Springfield and Savage rifles to kill both bears.  They were very fine specimens.  That was a splendid end to their week’s hunt of man-killers in the Government forests.  At 4 the next morning they started their trip to the railway at Itarsi, and from there went by a devious route to Kharsia, the railway station of the native State of Surguja.  After spending the night in the resthouse at Kharsia, they started north in three automobiles, escorted by the commissioner of police, who the Maharaja sent to greet them.  The character of the country was entirely different than in which they had hunted before.  That was mostly jungle, while this land was rice country, with jungles only on mountains, hills, and unprolific grounds in the valleys.  Soon. They left the low country and traversed a beautiful, rolling plain.  The only automobiles in the country belonged to the Maharaja.  The natives used few carts, everything was transported by coolies or pack animals.  The mail was carried by runner.  They operated in relays and made about six miles an hour.  Each year, tigers took their toll on those runners.

Several miles before they reached Ambikapur, the capital of Surguja, they could see the Maharaja’s palace, with houses clustered around it.  The state was feudal in all respects, and the inhabitants seemed happier than in the British provinces.  They were greeted at the outskirts of the capital by Mr. Daddimaster, the prime minister.  They left their road cars and accompanied the minister to a little garden, where chairs awaited them.  After drinks and flowers, they were taken to the state automobile, a large limousine with royal arm and yellow pennant, to make their entry into the capital.  An escort of lancers was in attendance, and, as they entered the city, school children were drawn up on each side of the road, waving small flags.  Beyond them was an honor guard of infantry in brilliant Indian uniforms.  They passed a line of picturesque temples and the palace to the guest house, where the Maharaja received them and bade them welcome.  Outside the guest house stood Gurkhas of the household guard, who had come from Nepal.  Domestic animals of all types passed the door – asses, horses, elephants, bullocks, and camels.  To the left of the entrance, the falconers kept their trained peregrine falcons.  Those falcons had been brought from Nepal.  Unfortunately, they had no time to do any hunting with them.  The sport was greatly appreciated by the princes of India.  [See: “Falconry, the Sport of Kings,” December 1920, The Geographic.]  Next to the falconers’ quarters were the Maharaja’s chamers, busy working over many panther and tiger skins that had fallen to his rifle.  The Maharaja of Surguja was the 114^th chief of his line.  His ancestors, driven out of Rajputana by the Mohammedan invasion of the eleventh century, fled south and east, conquered that part of the country, where very little resistance was encountered, and their descendants to that day [in 1924].  Others of the Maharaja’s forebears were driven to north-central India and into Nepal, where [in 1924] they were reigning princes.

Those, with his kin left in Rajputana, constituted the families that intermarried.  They were all devout Hindus.  The Maharaja himself supported the temples, priests, and schools throughout his domain of 6,000 square miles, with a population of more than half a million people.  Coming from the Rajput caste, the highest caste, but one in the Hindu galaxy, the only superior one being the priests themselves.  The Maharaja was one of the greatest hunters in India and had personally killed more than 250 tigers.  Tigers multiplied so rapidly there, having one to four cubs (usually two), once or twice a year, that they needed to be hunted constantly or they became a great menace.  The Maharaja had ordered 30 buffalo tied out as tiger bait.  The system of reporting a kill was very much like a military series of outposts.  The author found the precision and discipline among his people to be remarkable.  At 8 the following morning a kill was reported about three miles away, and off they went in an automobile.  Arriving at the jungle in which the tiger was locate, they mounted elephants and started for the blinds.  Those were the fastest elephants the author had ever seen, going through the forest at 5½ miles an hour.  They were decorated with painted caste-marks on their foreheads.  Upon reaching their blinds, they found their rifles, drinking water, and sandwiches had preceded them.  The Maharaja gave his final instructions and off went the head shikari.  About 600 beaters were employed, that being the slack season between harvest and plowing.  About 60 men were deployed as stops on either side of the blinds and climbed trees, after having strung their turbans and body cloths through the bushes to scare the tiger toward the blind.  The object was to enclose the tiger in a wide-flung circle and gradually drive it into a funnel of stops to the waiting guns.  They ascended the blind, a large one, constructed of four uprights, pole floors, leafy roof, and comfortable seats – a great contrast to the hastily improvised affairs at Churna.

The beat began.  The large number of beaters covered a great extent of ground.  They were kept in alignment by the shikaris, who rode from side to side on their elephants.  Those head beaters were given guns with blanks, used to keep the tiger moving.  They were also given live ammo in case the tiger attacked the beaters.  This tiger was a very canny animal – a great cattle-killer, who had carried off innumerable cows and buffaloes.  Six times he had been enclosed in beats, but he escaped on each occasion.  On came the beat with no sound from the tiger.  An hour passed and the individual shouts of men could be heard as they advanced, and soon the author could see then on his left.  The beaters to the right were still a distance off, as their alignment had not been properly kept. Everyone appeared to have come up.  The author unloaded the rifles.  Just as he did, the Maharaja told him to load, and, as the words left his mouth, the great tiger rushed the narrow strip between them and the stops.  The author loaded his wife’s .405 Winchester and took a shot.  He hit the tree beside the animal, and it was through a beat for a seventh time.  There was nothing more to do but to return to the palace, hoping for better luck next time.  For several days they had no tiger kills, so their time was spent shooting spotted deer, barking deer, and wild boar.  Mrs. Mitchell killed one of the largest wild boars the author had ever seen – three foot high and weighing 360 pounds.  Finally, news came that a tigress had been located.  A tracker had observed her going from one jungle to another.  Stops were placed around the whole covert.  No tracks were coming out, so it was evident that she was still there.  Neither Mrs. Mitchell nor the Maharaja could accompany the author on that day, but both the Maharaja’s cousin, Lal Sahib and the inspector of the police were his companions.  Everything was perfectly arranged, as usual.  They arrived at the blind at the appointed time and the beat started.

Finally, they could tell from the shouts of the beaters that a tiger had been flushed and was in the beat.  In a few minutes, they heard snarls in the forest and knew she was not far off.  Suddenly, there was a roar to their left, and the caught a glimpse of orange and black speeding in the forest.  Again, a wait and intense silence, while the beaters redoubled their shouts and the shikaris fired several blanks.  The author felt Lal Shahib grip his arm and point straight to the front.  There, he saw the tigress directly in front of them, sneaking along through some low brush.  Slowly, the author raised his rifle, this time the .450 double-barreled, and gave her a bullet in the right shoulder from 50 yards.  Down she went without a sound.  He fired again, but that proved unnecessary.  She was a fine animal, measuring 9 feet 6 inches – very large for a tigress.  The next day they moved to a camp about 36 miles northwest, at a place called Srinagar.  Upon arrival, they were greeted with news that a large tiger had made a kill the night before.  The Maharaja and author immediately set out for the location.  They found over 700 beaters awaiting them.  There blind was in a dry watercourse, about 40 feet wide, its little valley being about 150 yards wide at that point.  The stops were arranged along the tops of the ascending hills on either side.  Suddenly, the heard the deep roar of a large tiger and, a minute later, clapping and shouts from the stops on their right, as they turned him back. After twenty minutes of silence, with a thundering roar, the beast bounded down the watercourse straight for them.  His strength, grace, and speed were indescribable.  As he rounded a turn about 60 yards away, the author let him have it with his right barrel.  The bullet hit him in the right eye, as he was springing.  The leap, a good 20 feet, came, but when he landed, he was stone-dead.  The bullet had entered the brain, and not a mark was visible on his beautiful coat.  No one had ever seen or heard of a tiger being shot without having a mark made on his skin.  He measured ten feet long.  The author had killed two tigers in two days.

They returned to their camp, which the author had barely had time to see before departing for the tiger.  A little beyond their tents was the camp of the elephants.  When not working, they were in a large pond, bathing and spurting water over themselves.  They lied down on their sides, put their heads under water, and were scrubbed all over by their attendants.  There were many large fish in that pond, as in all ponds in that part of the country.  One variety dug into the mud in the rice fields during the dry season and came up as soon as the rains had made sufficient water for them.  Two shooting stands had been erected on the banks, and the next morning they shot several specimens measuring from one and a half to two and a half feet.  They had fine, hard, white flesh and were excellent food fish.  Mrs. Mitchell had gotten ill and was unable to accompany her husband for several days.  She had not yet killed a tiger, and their time was growing short.  Just as she began to improve news came that a large tiger had made a kill about 16 miles off.  They drove 10 miles of that distance in their motor car; then the author’s wife was carried the remaining 6 miles on a litter improvised from one of the native beds.  Everything was ready when the reached the blind, which was near the banks of a broad, dry river bottom.  Directly in front of them laid two little dry stream courses covered with open brush and small trees, which gave them an excellent view.  The beat started with great vigor and the country reverberated with shouts.  Several shots of blanks from various directions indicated that more than one tiger was in the beat.  Soon several beautiful peacocks passed then, some on the ground and some on the wing.  They heard a clapping from the stops to their right and a low growl from a tiger.  Soon they caught sight of a beautiful tigress.  She was neither unduly alarmed nor irritated.  Again, she went toward the stops and was gently turned back.  She waited for a moment, then came walking rapidly over the hill directly toward them.

As she arrived within 40 yards, she was preparing to leap when Mrs. Mitchell sent a .405 bullet right through her heart.  The great cat leapt toward them and crossed the stream at the foot of their blind, falling back dead, as they gave her two more bullets, which were unnecessary.  Ten minutes elapsed and they heard a great roar from the male tiger and the efforts of the beaters to turn him back.  He was furious.  He came to the second watercourse but would come no further.  The beaters reached the ridge and the stops warned them to take to the trees and wait for the elephants, who came through with their trunks held high.  The beaters from the trees put up united shouts, while the elephants crushed down heavy underbrush and waved branches in the air trying to drive the tiger on.  In a flash, with a roar, the tiger rushed the elephants.  They avoided him, but he was gone.  They started back, the dead tiger on a litter much like Mrs. Mitchell’s.  The natives covered the animal with leaves and flowers out of respect for their enemy.  In the vicinity some years prior, a single tiger had killed more than 90 people.  He eluded pursuit until he was shot with a poisoned arrow.  The native of that province were great bowmen.  The day following Mrs. Mitchell’s successful shot, they returned to the capital, where they learned that the tiger which escaped the first day killed a large buffalo out of a herd and had walked off with him into the woods.  They had no time to waste.  Mrs. Mitchell did not even have time to change her silk dress for her hunting togs.  The beat had been arranged in all haste.  The blind was good, but in very thick country.  The author and his wife were in the blind while the Maharaja placed his car on the road in a clearing about 200 yards behind them.  If the tiger escaped the couple, either wounded or unhurt, the Maharaja would have a good shot.  The beat came on in splendid fashion.  Alignment was being kept.  A great number of peacocks and red jungle fowl passed the blind.  Several jackals slunk by.

Without any warning, they heard a commotion among the stops to their left, followed by a roar, and they knew the tiger was close by.  He rushed the stops to the right and was barely turned back.  Not slacking his pace, he came straight for the blind, using every bit of cover to conceal his approach.  They awaited their opportunity, and the couple fired at the same instant.  He fell, stone-dead in full stride.  One bullet had hit exactly in the center of the forehead and death was instantaneous.  He was a beautiful creature, about 14 years old, and 10 feet 4 inches long.  He was the largest tiger the author had ever seen, although larger had been killed.  They only had two more days at Surguja, and the Maharaja was anxious that those be successful.  Fortunately, the following day, there was a kill about six miles away.  The animal they sought was a full-grown male.  He had recently come into that part of the country, killing some cattle, and escaping from one beat.  They climbed their blind.  The Maharaja took the one to the left, to better supervise the hunt and to serve as a stop.  The beaters were tired from the day before and their precision did not seem to be as great.  The tiger took advantage of it, and made his escape.  The Maharaja had some words for his shikaris.  He was displeased with the way the hunt was handled.  They had failed to keep the lines properly dressed.  They had pushed the tiger too fast.  The Maharaja rushed off and got together another beat, which was almost unheard of.  They returned to their blind and waited.  Two hours went by.  The author could hear the beaters distinctly.  Suddenly, as he glanced to his front, the tiger stepped out of the jungle about 60 yards ahead.  He walked diagonally across the author’s front.  The author aimed at the chest but hit the abdomen, practically disemboweling the beast.  As he spun around, the author let him have it with the other barrel.  He disappeared into the brush and did not make a sound.  The author blew his whistle to signal the tiger was wounded, not dead.

In a moment, the Maharaja appeared on his elephant and asked where the tiger was.  The author indicated the spot, and he rode off in that direction.  The tiger was only a few yards off and breathing his last.  The .450 had done its work, although it had torn up his beautiful coat badly.  That was their last tiger hunt in the State of Surguja.  Their stay was over and they hastened to check over all their trophies, saw to the packing, and sent them out.  Most were sent by coolies for the 124 miles to the railway.  They had been so busy hunting during their stay in Surguja that little thought had been given to the formalities attendant on their visit.  The time had come to say farewell, and to mark it the Maharaja held a durbar.  It could last a few hours or several days.  It consisted of holding court, receiving guests, and providing entertainment, and turning out all the state forces in their best costumes.  The durbar was held in the evening.  They dressed accordingly – Mrs. Mitchell in evening dress, while the author donned his dress uniform.  They were greeted by the young rajah, who led them across a courtyard.  After greetings, the Maharaja told the tales of their hunt to everyone in attendance.  The author’s wife was one of only two women present, the other, the wife of the prince’s English tutor.  During the durbar none of the Hindu ladies were present or took part.  It was arranged for the Maharani and the Maharaja’s mother to receive Mrs. Mitchell at the conclusion of the durbar.  After its close, the men al proceeded to another apartment with the heir apparent.  The room was carpeted with an immense rug made of tiger pelts, while the table was covered with panther skins.  There they talked while Mrs. Mitchell remained in the main hall, where the royal ladies appeared and took their place beside her.  An interpreter was provided.  Mrs. Mitchell soon joined her husband after a pleasant conversation with the royal ladies, and they bade farewell to the people.  They were escorted back in state to the guest house.

In a few minutes, the Maharaja came to pay his respects to them.  They received him in the large reception room, on whose floor were four tremendous tiger rugs.  They distributed garland, sat for a while, then said goodnight, and the function was over.  Next morning, they rose early to get to an intermediate camp between Ambikapur and the railway, where they spent three days hunting in the territory of the Rajah of Udaipur (and where Mrs. Mitchell killed a magnificent tigress).  They had killed so many animals during their last three days that their pelts did not have time to dry.  They had to spread them over the truck that carried their baggage south, allowing then to dry enroute.  The Maharaja saw them off, the band played the Star-Spangled Banner, the guard of honor presented arms, and their wonderful sojourn at Surguja was over.

 

 

The fifth item listed on the cover of this month’s issue is entitled “From the Plains of Madras to the Snows of Kashmir” and has no byline.  It is not an article, but a set of “16 Duotone Illustrations.”  These duotones, formerly known as photogravures, are full-page transfers to paper using acid-etched metal plates and special ink.  The deeper the etch, the darker the transfer.  This set of duotones is embedded within the last article on pages 561 through 576.

A list of the duotones’ caption titles is as follows:

• “Looking Through the Great Gate of Trichinopoly Toward the Srirangam Temple”
• “One of the State Elephants of Mysore”
• “A Snake Charmer of Benares”
• “The Zoji La, the Usual Northern Limit of Tourist Travel in Kashmir”
• “A Ceremony at a Monastery in the Karakoram Mountains”
• “A Group of the Famous Afridis, Who Are Enlisted as the “Khyber Rifles” to Guard the Khyber Pass, Gateway Between India and Afghanistan”
• “The Most Important Architectural Remains in Southern India, at Seven Pagodas, Madras”
• “A Giant Idol of Madras”
• “A Vaulted Street in Shikarpur”
• “Broad Peak and Camp VI on the Godwin Austen Glacier: Karakoram Mountains
• “An Indian Fakir, or Sadhu, with His Head Buried in Sand”
• “A Dancing Girl of Kashmir”
• “A Shrine in One of the Mount Abu Jain Temples: Rajputana”
• “A Pool at the Base of Granite Hill (Indrabetta), Which Towers Above the
• Village of Sravana Belgola, in Mysore”
• “A Trophy of the Hunt: a Tiger Killed by the Maharaja of Gwalior”
• “The remarkable Indian Feat of Tilting on a Sword”
• 
  

 

Tom Wilson

 

[George Thomas Wilson]

At the bottom of the last page of the last article in this issue (Page 598) there is a notice regarding change of address.  If a member wanted the magazine to be mailed somewhere else, the Society needed a month’s notice in advance, starting on the first of the month.  If a member wanted the January issue redirected, the Society needed to know by December first.