The Oregon daily journal., June 13, 1909, Page 35, Image 35

(TIIB GREGOtf SVtftJAY- jQURtfAIV POtAND, SUNDAY- SIrJRWI3'Q i JUTTO 13, 19 w.
rsrv
c Chao Ghahnls
OLOJUULUJUULUJLUJUUl
7 -i ' i
By Clarence PuIIen
NY one who thinks the elephant a slowl clumsy
Deast would' have cause to change his opinion
on seeing . him at " work along the rivers of
northern.' Siam. The "rainy seasqn, which be- :
ginsin April, is the time when the teak logs, cut ""
during the dry .season' in the forests, about the upper
vatfr. f f.n,m' i?;,,., fl,t.j a, trtt,, V
waters of the Menan River, are floated down to Rahang, ,
where they are caught and rafted to Bangkok. Instead
of red-shirted, spiked-shocd . " river-drivers " r such as
handle the logs in their downstream journey to the
sawmills on the Penobscot andKennebec in Maine, the
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' L " lumber-driving " of the Siamese f ivers is done by bare- ":
. iooiea,, nau-naicea men on elephants, ana tne Done
labor and much of the thinking involved in the operation
are done by the elephants. , .:
The middle -of June, some years, ago, fpund the drive
- of teak logs, that I was taking down the Me-ping River
about half-way on its journey from the cuttings to Ra
hang. . My .crew consisted of twenty elephant3 with their
Shan and Lao mahoutsor keepers, who drove the logs,
and as many bullock-drivers, choppers, and men-of-all-work
to attend to the camps and hiul supplies. Boats
were needless, for there was no water too deep or cur-
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rent too strong forrae elephants, who went up and down
the steepest slopes and over rocks like great cats as they
patrolled the river, rolling into the current with heads,
trunks, and tusks the logs stranded along the channel,
or wading out into cataracts to break a forming j ant.
All these elephants were tuskers, except my riding ele
phant, Lala, and the biggest and strongest and most
docile of all was PrahadaV elephant, Chao Chahng, the
chief, who stood ten fdet high at the shoulder. Prahada
was a northern Lao, a thorough putw chahng, at elephant-master,
who, like all good mahouts, was on the
best of terms with his animal, and I had learned that the
two were to be depended upon to carry through the
hardest jobs that by an chancS might come up in
the day's work.
In camping in the forest it was not unusual for us to
find, of a morning, the tracks of some wild animal which
had reconnoitcred the camp during t night Such a
discovery excited no particular alarm, as the prowling
beasts of Siam commonly avoid man, and the worst that
was looked for from a tiger or panther was that he
might spring upon a straying buffalo or goat Hence it
was the unexpected which happened, "when a tiger one
evening, with the whole camp awake, seized a man who
had gone a few steps from one of the fires to fetch
wood to replenish it. At his outcry and the sound of
the tiger's growl, the Sharis and Laos, realizing at once
what was to be done, caught blazing brands from the
fire and rushed to their comrade's rescue. A brand
flung at the tiger struck him in the head, causing him to
drop the man .and sneak, away in the . darkness. The
tracks of the tiger showed him to be a very large as well
as bold one; but after his experience with the firebrand,
he was not likely, so the men assured me, to venture into
the camp again while fires were burning there. The man
was not dangerously hurt, and we hoped that our trou
bles from wild beasts were ended, as they had begun,'
with. this visit . ..
But we were not to be rid of the tiger so easily, He
was lurking along pur line of-work on the river next
day, as the alarm shown by the elephants on several
occasions testified, : When night came on and most of
the men and elephants were back in camp,. Prahada,
who had been sent that day far upstream, had not re
turned. Presently the crashing sound of an elephant
coming at full speed was heard in the forest, and soon
Chao Chahng appeared in a state of great excitement,
and Prahada was not on his back. He halted among the .
other elephants, and then we saw that his back was torn
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by a tiger's daws. I made up a searching-party,- and by
the light of torches we went back over the elephafH.
trail for half a mile. Then rain began to fall; endjng
our searph, as it blotted out the tracks, and we returned,
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having found no sign of Prahada. - . ,, v
JUjo tory of the tragedy we never learned except as it
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arid the Man-Eater
was written in file wounds on Chao Chahng's Jacki The
claw-marks showed that the tiger bad leapcn on him
from behind, and, as was to be expected, he had run
away, for an attack frbrh that quarter, will throw' the
bravest and steadiest elephant into an uncontrollable
panic. Whether Prahada sjipped to the ground., was
pulled down from his seat by the tiger, or was brushed,
ff by me K elephanfs running under a tree could
only be guessed at, for no trace of him was ever found,
That the tiger which killed and carried him off was of
uncommon fierceness was 6hown by his leaping upon an
elephant so formidable in size as Chao Chahng,
-, There was reason to fear that the big elephant, hav
iing felt the tiger's claws, and missing -the mahout to
whom ne was accustomed, might refuse to work again
on the river; but Prahim, a cousin of Prahada', took
Chao Chahnz out next dav with the others and nut him
through hjs tasks without trouble. ' It, was evident that'
the great creature mourned for his dead master, as was
shown by his restlessness at night, and by his utterance
of a moaning sound from time to time, very different
from the grunt and snort of the other elephants. That
the great, patient creature was to be the avenger of his
slain master no one in the camp could have thought or
dreamed..
The tiger gave no further sign of his presence either
by day or night about the camp, where, for precaution,
tires were kept burning from sunset to daylight The
following day some of the elephants working above the
camp showed fear of something that they saw or scented
in the undergrowth on the river-bank; but as I sent
them out now in companies of three together, the tiger,
if he was lurking about, did not venture to attack any
of them. But he prowled near the camp that nightr-as
we saw by his tracks next morning! -
" To-day-ne, two, three since Prahada went," said a
Lao forester to me, holding i up his fingers one after
another to signify the lapse of days; and shaking his
head gloomily, he added: "Now the tiger will come
back again." .
After the recent tragedy, with the knowledge that the
tiger which carried Prahada off was awaiting his chance
for the next victim, it was a matter of course that both
elephants and men should become demoralized and that
work should lag. Several of the men, two with ele
phants, jjuit my service under various pretextsbut really
STRETCHING SOTH FORK LEGS STRAIGHT
OUT BEFORE HIM, HK WENT' SLIDING
DOWN THR SLOPE."
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front fear of the tiger, and I knew that if another man
were carried off by him it would mean a general statu
v pede of my force. With the purchasing firm at Bangkok
impatiently awaiting the news of the arrival of the logs
at Rahang, I had to see my work hindered and in dan
ger of coming to a standstill through one murderous
brute, which could not be killed or frightened away,
unless by some accident, which waS not at all likely. I
carried my repeating-rifle on my trips from the camp,
partly in the hope of catching a "snap-shot" at the tiger,
but more to inspire my men with courage and confidence ;
and further to inspirit them I added iowls to their ra
tion of rice, made presents of fancy cloths and tobacco
to the subforcmen, and promised that everf elephant-.
driver should receive five silver coins beyond his stated
pay if the logs were all down at Rahang by the first day
. of July. ,
The tail of the drive was lodged at some rapids five
miles up the river, and by clearing these it would be
practicable to move camp a day ,or two later, which
might take us below the ranging Of the tiger, who had
made his presence known to us in every instance from
somewhere above the camp. None of the men or ele
phants liked to be sent in this direction, and so for this
work, on the third day, I detailed four of the best,
tuskers and drivers, and accompanied them.cn my riding
; elephant - My presence, with the rifle sluhg to my rid
, ing-pad, gave courage to the men, which was imparted
, to their elephants, and they worked so well that by the
middle of the afternoon the rapids were cleared.
Below the rapids the river broadened into a long pool
a quarter of a mile wide, and of a depth of three or four
feet except where the current had cut a deep channel
. alonir the foot of the high eastern bank. At the edge
of the rapids on the east side, as I waited for Chao
Chahng to. push the last log into the current, I called to
the three mahouts across the stream to keep on down
he..we-t bank, intending myself totake a forest path
leading to the foot of the pool on the east They had
disappeared rond a Tthe shore nd Lala was
leading the way up the east bank from the river, when
my rifle slipped from its slings and fell upon the rocks,
Ai.hi mahout's command. Chao Chahng, coming on
'.behind us, picked it up with his trunk and passed it
back to me. when I found that the hammer was iammed
by the fall and 10 would not worlu 5Ve got pjoa tli$
' high ground, and I was hoping as we vent on that the
tiger would not take this time to show himself, when
we heard the three elephants across the river all trum-'
peting together. Something in their note our animals
seemed to understand, for at the sound Lala opened out
: her ears like fans and quickened her pace, and I could
hear the big elephant gathering speed behind her. ; An-
' other minute and Chao Chahng, acting as if he were
beyond all control of his mahout, rushed, past us and
.soon was lost to view among the trees ahead.
Suspecting the cause of the trumpeting, I told my
mahout to keep as close after Chao Chahng as he could,
and we hurried along until, in making a cut-off from the
path, we came in view of of the river, and the mahout,f
bringing Lala- to a sudden halt, pointed with his hand
out upon the pool. Above the surface near the opposite
bank was the black-and-yellow head of a swimming
tiger, the ripples, of his wake widening back to the low,
wooded shore, while after him into the water came the
1 three elephants, with' their mahouts urging them on.
They had discovered the tiger crossing the river, and
knowing that in the water he was helpless to attack'
them, the mahouts had not hesitated to put their ele
phants at him. The tiger, realizing his disadvantage,
was swimming fast for the eastern bank, with excellent
prospects, as far as we" could see, of making it safely,
Lrfor Lata was of no use against him, and Chao Chahng,
who might possibly have headed him off in the water,
t had run away. '
With my rifle useless and believing that Lala "would
bolt as soon as the tiger touched the shore, I was think
ing of following the big elephant's example, when I
heard him corning back. He had been running, not
.from fear, but to search out a place where he could get
down to the water without breaking his neck, and now
he emerged from the woods at the brink of the. high
bank in line with the course in which the tiger was
swimming. He advanced, testing his fooling, until the
dirt at the edge, Crumbling under his feet, began to
rattle down to the water ; then stretching both fore legs
straight out before him, he curved his big body over the
brink, and went sliding down the slope. -The tiger, see- ,
ing him coining, turned back toward the middle of the
stream. The bank fell fifty feet down to the water, and was
very steep, and how Chao Chahng avoided turning a som
ersault or tws on the way is a mystery; but somehow he
kept "right side up," and, with Prahim hanging desperately
to the girth to save himself from dropping over his head,
he plunged into the water. From a fountain of mud
and spray his trunk emerged, and, then the top of his
back, moving out into the river, with the mahout climb
ing to his place on the neck. Like a monitor in a run
ning tide the elephant propelled himself across the deep
cliannel, and, gaining his footing in the shallower water
beyond, he loomed,, up, confronting the tiger, which
turned and swam to a great boulder that rose some three
feet above the water's surface, and scrambled upon it.
Here he bristled and roared, while the four elephants
came up and lined themselves- around him. At my com
mand, the mahout turned Lala back toward the cataract,
and fording the river there, forced her out into the pool
above the other elephants, where she took a position
from which I could see all that went on.
1 lad my rifle been in working order, I could have
settled matters with the tiger where he stood, for no
hunter could have asked for a surer shot than he pre
sented. With my rifle disabled the situation was, quite
another thing. On the rock the tiger stood level with
the shoulders of the eltfphants, and for them to close in
upon him where his spring would land -him squarely
upon the nearest one's head was too much to expect of
elephants or mahouts. From a safe distance away they
trumpeted and threatened him with their trunks, but
Came no nearer, while the tiger, facing one and another
in turn, made feints of springing upon each, but refused
io quit the rock. Even Chao Chahng, who plainly was
there for business with thetiger, was not disposed, with
the scratches still fresh On his back, to give him a sec
ond chance to find a foothold there. And all the while :
we were so near the tiger that I could see the line of
singed hair along his head where the firebrand had
sjfruck when he tried to carry away the man at the camp
a few nights before.
After a half-hour of waiting, with nothing gained, I
was debating with myself whether a fire-raft would be
more Jikely to dislodge the tiger than to stampede the
elephants, when the muddy water grew more turbid and
I could see that it was rising round the rock. A rainfall
somewhere up the river was thecause of (lie change,
which might indicate a trifling rise or a sweeping freshet
The elephants already 'were quite deep in the pool, and
if the water kept on rising it was certain that they would
not stay until it was high enough to force the tiger
front the rock. In five minutes, however, the water had
risen a foot, and the elephants now were looking anx
iously from the tiger up to where the rapids were be
ginning to roar with the coming flood. Every tropical
beast stands in supreme dread of an inundation, and the
tiger turned from his besiegers to sniff and growl in a
new key as the roar of the cataract grew louder and the
rising water washed up against his paws. With the
stream surging agajnst their shoulders, the elephants
shifted about m their tracks so as to face the current,
.and the mahouts had to keep up a continual shouting,
-and work their great-toes vigorously against the backs
of the flapping ears, to prevent the uneasy animals from
returning to the shore. Only Chao Chahng held his
ground, facing the tiger, while Lala, shuffling round un
easily, seemed undecided as to whether her safer course
were to remain under his protection or to take to her
heels. s
Something drifted past me toward the rock a great
teak log that the rising water had brought down from
somewhere upstream. As it scraped along the rock the
tiger several times seemed on the point of stepping upon
the log. He hesitated, but just as its rear end was pass
ing he glided upon it. The heavy log, floating deep in
the water, sank lower beneath his weight as, crawling
to the middle of it, he was borne from the rock. While
the other mahouts vainly tried to force ( their elephants
to the log, Chao Chahng, , at .Prahim's word, pushed
swiftly forward upon the tiger, who, balancing himself
upon his unsteady support, could fiiove only forward or
backward. At sight of the tusks and upraised trunk
above him, the tiger, turning, with a whine of fear crept
swiftly back on the log, evidently hoping to regain his
place on the rock. But Chao dialing, following his
movements, struck him a sweeping side blow with his
trunk that sent him flying into the water. The other
tuskers, no longer to be restrained, were plunging for
the shore, and Lala bolted after them. 1 caught one
glimpse of the big elephant rushing upon the tiger strug
gling at the surface, and after that, while Lala took the
rocks and holes at the bottom, I was kept too busy hold
ing myself by the ropes to the pad to turn my head until ,
we were at the shore. Then, looking back, I saw the
water swirling over the rock, and above the surface only
the floating log, and Chao Chahng stalking shoreward
through the flood with the air of having just discovered
that the river was rising.
We made our way down the shore to the camp, where
the menort learning that the man-eater was killed, built t
bonfires in rejoicing, and, to the accompaniment of flute
and pipe, sang songs for half the night in celebration of ,
Chao Chahng and his victory over the tiger. The river
rose five feet in an hour, and when it had subsided next
day the tiger's body was found anile below the pool,
stranded on a bar. It had been too long in the water y
for the skin to be worth saving, but I wore one of his
claws, on my watch-gnard at Rahang on the Fourth of '
July, which day found our camp there, with all the logs
in, boom ready. for rafting, '.
Cb Russian peasant and fits Curnip
Old Ivaa (John) goes out into the garden tS pull
t turnip for dinner,
Seeing-their distress their little daughter
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' Thinking it is a new game that is beiog
While the cat Briska looks on all unconscious of a
Then with a long pull and a strong pull and
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Eut all's well that ends well, and
;li raioic ia tbs DTOSOAtt ot
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The ground is hard and the roots are long, so his "
wife Masha (Mary) comes out to help him.
Varka (Barbara) conies to the rescue, and
played, their little dog Moska joins U,
very tender and tempting mouse just behind bet; T
pull all together up the turnip comes.)
arouod old Iran they crowd and
saw dianat well tmrd.
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