Thus, The
Splendid Corpse Of A Royal Tiger Has Been Brought In In A Bullock-Cart,
The Driver Claiming The Reward Of Fifteen Dollars, And Its Claws Were
Given To Me.
It was trapped only six miles off, and its beautiful
feline body had not had time to stiffen.
Even when dead, with its
fierce head and cruel paws hanging over the end of the cart, it was not
an object to be disrespected. The same reward is offered for a
rhinoceros, five dollars for a crocodile (alligator?) and five dollars
for a boa-constrictor or python. Lately, at five in the morning, a
black tiger (panther?) came down the principal street of Malacca, tore
a Chinamen in pieces, and then, scared by a posse of police in pursuit,
jumped through a window into a house. Every door in the city was
barred, as the rumor spread like wildfire. The policemen very boldly
entered the house, but the animal pinned the Malay corporal to the
wall. The second policeman, a white man, alas! ran away. The third, a
Malay, at the risk of his life, went close up to the tiger, shot him,
and beat him over the head with the butt of his rifle, which made the
beast let go the corporal and turn on him, but fortunately he had
scarcely got hold of him when he fell dead. The corporal is just coming
out of hospital, almost completely paralyzed, to be taken care of for
the rest of his life, and the man who rescued him has got promotion and
a pension. A short time ago a fine young tiger was brought alive to
Captain Shaw, and he ordered a proper cage to be made, in which to send
him to England, telling Babu, the "double Hadji," to put it into the
"godown" in its bamboo cage; but the man put it into the kitchen, and
in the morning the cage was found broken into pieces, the kitchen
shutters torn down, and the tiger gone! There was a complete panic in
Malacca; people kept their houses shut, and did not dare to go out even
on business, and not only was the whole police force turned out in
pursuit, but the English garrison. It was some days before the scare
subsided and the people believed that the beast had escaped to its
natural home in the jungle.
A tropical thunderstorm of the most violent kind occurred yesterday,
when I was quite alone in the Stadthaus. The rain fell in sheets,
deluges, streams, and the lightning flashed perfectly blue through a
"darkness which could be felt." There is a sort of grandeur about this
old Dutch Stadthaus, with its tale of two centuries. Its smooth lawns,
sloping steeply to the sea, are now brilliant with the gaudy
parrot-like blossoms of the "flame of the forest," the gorgeous
Poinciana regia, with which they are studded. Malacca is such a rest
after the crowds of Japan and the noisy hurry of China!
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