[Footnote 1:  It is said, that a tiger lying in wait for a string of passengers usually selects the last of the party.]

Wild Beast Fights

“Early in the morning, the whole party, including ladies, eager for the novel spectacle, mounted elephants, and repaired to the private gate of the royal palace, where the King met the Commander-in-Chief, and conducted him and his company to a palace in the park, in one of the courts of which the arena for the combats was prepared.  In the centre was erected a gigantic cage of strong bamboos, about fifty feet high, and of like diameter, and rooffed with rope network.  Sundry smaller cells, communicating by sliding doors with the main theatre, were tenanted by every species of the savagest inhabitants of the forest.  In the large cage, crowded together, and presenting a formidable front of broad, shaggy foreheads well armed with horns, stood a group of buffaloes sternly awaiting the conflict, with their rear scientifically appuye against the bamboos.  The trap-doors being lifted, two tigers, and the same number of bears and leopards, rushed into the centre.  The buffaloes instantly commenced hostilities, and made complete shuttlecocks of the bears, who, however, finally escaped by climbing up the bamboos beyond the reach of their horned antagonists.  The tigers, one of which was a beautiful animal, fared scarcely better; indeed, the odds were much against them, there being five buffaloes.  They appeared, however to be no match for these powerful creatures, even single-handed, and showed little disposition to be the assaulters.  The larger tiger was much gored in the head, and in return took a mouthful of his enemy’s dewlap, but was finally (as the fancy would describe it) ‘bored to the ropes and floored.’  The leopards seemed throughout the conflict sedulously to avoid a breach of the peace.

“A rhinoceros was next let loose in open courtyard, and the attendants attempted to induce him to pick a quarrel with a tiger who was chained to a ring.  The rhinoceros appeared, however, to consider a fettered foe as quite beneath his enmity; and having once approached the tiger, and quietly surveyed him, as he writhed and growled, expecting the attack, turned suddenly round and trotted awkwardly off to the yard gate, where he capsized a palankeen which was carrying away a lady fatigued with the sight of these unfeminine sports.

“A buffalo and tiger were the next combatants:  they attacked furiously, the tiger springing at the first onset on the other’s head, and tearing his neck severely; but he was quickly dismounted, and thrown with such violence as nearly to break his back, and quite to disable him from renewing the combat.

“A small elephant was next impelled to attack a leopard.  The battle was short and decisive; the former falling on his knees, and thrusting his blunted tusks nearly through his antagonist.

“On our return from the beast fight a breakfast awaited us at the royal palace; and the white tablecloth being removed, quails, trained for the purpose, were placed upon the green cloth, and fought most gamely, after the manner of the English cockpit.  This is an amusement much in fashion among the natives of rank, and they bet large sums on their birds, as they lounge luxuriously round, smoking their houkahs.