A Leopard by the Tail

     Yes, it is possible to kill a leopard in single combat, but it is not something recommended. Five years ago I reported two cases: taxidermist and animal collector, Carl Akeley, who straggled one, and the one-handed giant, Jean-Pierre Hallet, who slew one Tarzan-style, but leaping on its back and stabbing it. So this time, I shall tell the story of Captain Edward Wood, formerly a forestry official in British India, who gave a whole new meaning to the expression "swing a cat".

     Here is a later photo of him, which, regrettably does not copy well. The event took place at Etawah, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, but was then known as Oudh (Awadh). Since the first train ran from Etawah Station in 1865-6, I presume the events took place just before that, because Wood stated that he had been posted to Etawah just before the railway was completed.

     The very day he arrived, before he had even arrived at his quarters, he met a surveyor called Patrick Cogan, who immediately gave him a note to take to Mrs Cogan. The result was that he was busy dining at the Cogan residence when his host rode up with a proposition. A group of villagers had requested assistance in getting rid of a wild animal which had taken possession of their field. Was he (Wood) in the mood for a bit of sport? The upshot was that he accompanied Cogan, armed with "a tolerable blunderbuss" which the latter had provided, the right barrel loaded with shot and the left with a ball.

     Before long, he was in the midst of fields of wheat four feet high, with a line of locals forming a "beat". Cogan ended up 100 yards away chasing a herd of wild pigs. Suddenly, a fully grown leopard broke cover in front of Wood, who fired the shot and hit it. At that, the leopard turned and attacked him. He fired the ball and missed, only to be bowled over by the leopard, whose charge took it several feet away. Scrabbling to his feet, Wood faced the second charge of the cat.

     Needless to say, he could no more remember the full details of the struggle than a participant in a barroom brawl can remember every punch. At one point he was grasping the animal's throat with one hand while raining blows on its head and neck. The next instant, they were wrestling on the ground, where his hand came into contact with the barrels of the gun he had dropped, and he commenced bashing his opponent with it.

    Just then, Cogan's gun-bearer managed to place the muzzle of his rifle against the leopard's body, but the weapon refused to fire, because it had been left half-cocked. At that point, the leopard turned on the gun-bearer.

     That few seconds' respite was all Wood needed. He saw the leopard standing over its conquered foe, its hindquarters towards him. Its  "splendid yellow tail", swaying before his eyes, fascinated and drew him. Before he knew it, he seized it by the root, heaved the animal off the ground, and swung it around. Fortuitously, its head smashed into the jagged stump of a sal tree. He heard the crack as its neck broke. Then he fainted.

     If all this sounds far-fetched, you must understand that a leopard is approximately the same weight as a human being. Also, we all come equipped with an emergency resource: a hormone known as adrenaline. When it is pumping through your system, you are capable of feats of strength beyond anything imaginable under normal circumstances. There is a tale of a woman who lifted an automobile off her child under such circumstances. An American veteran told me of seeing a man under fire holding his unconscious buddy by the belt with one hand while running at top speed. Afterwards, he said, he would have been "a limp rag". I have previously reported how a fourteen year old boy threw a lion - admittedly, a very small one - against a tree after he had pried open its jaws.

     The gun-bearer recovered fairly quickly from his wounds, but it was another six months before Wood was back in action. The claws of a bit cat are toxic. For several weeks he was ill with "fever, delirium [and] blood-poisoning." The surgeons considered amputating his arm, but were afraid he might die under the knife. As it was, he came out of it with just heavy scarring on his chest and arm, and partial loss of use of two fingers.

Reference: Captain Cecil Dyce, 'A splendid feat;, The Wide World Magazine 3:392-4 (August 1899), accessible here. Dyce was a friend of his, who took down his own words, and viewed his scars.

A garbled, second hand account of this, apparently taken from Cogan, was published on pp 126-7 of James Inglis' 1878 book, Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier, accessible here.

    And while we are on the subject of big cats, here is a second hand story which is too good to pass up. In 1898, a Colonel G. H. Trevor wrote about being in an officers' mess when the topic got around to tigers. He writes as if he were recording the conversation as it developed, which I find unlikely, so judge for yourself. Of the following account, "its truth has been confirmed from many sources." A certain S. B. was the manager of a tea plantation in Assam, India, which was plagued by a man-eating tiger. The upshot was that he and a number of other planters decided to wait up all night on the unlit verandah, disguised in native blankets. One of them went indoors for some reason, when he heard S. B. calling out: "Help! For God's sake! The tiger's got me!"

     Fixing the bayonet to his rifle, his friend rushed out, and in the gloom saw the tiger dragging S. B., who was walking beside it with his hand in its mouth. At once, he rammed the bayonet into the tiger's body, then pulled the trigger.

     It then transpired that the tiger had stolen in upon the watchers like a shadow, without the slightest warning, and had seized the nearest one, who happened to be B., by the hand, which he had raised to defend himself, and had commenced to drag him off. In his agony, he rose to his feet, and after descending the steps of the bungalow, was actually walking off with his hand in the tiger's mouth, to be devoured, when his friend, by his courage and presence of mind, rescued him from an awful death. The other watchers, utterly panic-stricken, had made for the nearest door ...

Reference: Col. G. H. Trevor, 'Some curiosities of tiger hunting', The Wide World Magazine, 1:563 - 571, at 571 (Oct 1898), accessible here. 

     Interestingly, my mother (born 1909) several times mentioned reading about a person who had been led away by the hand by a man-eater. I suspect it came from a much later edition of the magazine. Some of these stories were recycled.