Already during the evening yesterday the sky had become clouded and during the night it started raining heavily. The area around the tents was heavily soaked but the tents fortunately resisted fine. A bad prospect for the hunt as the tiger will hunt during such weather but will move whereas he will rest near its victim in warm sunny weather and can be tracked by the shikaris with near absolute certainty. In the morning the intensity of the rain lessened. I decided after a long council with the head shikari and on his advice, given that it was pointless to go after the tiger, to hunt sambar deer and later seek game as well as jackals.

Soon we left camp and moved towards the closest hills on horseback. There a shikari confirmed the presence of a sambar deer. All gentlemen remained behind. I alone with the shikari and Janaczek climbed a very steep ridge on whose ledge the shikari pointed out a supposedly strong sambar deer on the next ridge. Despite all efforts during quite some time, I was not able to see it as it stood Immovable watching us. Its brown yellow colors blended perfectly with the surrounding dry grass. Finally I saw the deer. The shikari wanted me to shoot at once but I believed the distance  — at 400 paces — too large for a safe shot. As it was impossible to get closer due to the valley between us, I gave in tot the shikari’s pressure and shot from this ridge to the other. To my great satisfaction, I scored a chest hit on the deer that fled and disappeared on the other side of the ridge. With great effort I climbed down the ledge over stones and through thorny thickets, up the other ridge and found blood marks at the location. Following the tracks I saw the wounded deer move through the thick greenery and shot once again but missed in the heat of the moment.

The gentlemen and the native hunters left behind in the valley had seen the wounded deer flee after the shot and now everyone was going after the wounded animal with shouts and in great turmoil. The chief professional hunter shouted with stentorian voice down from his elephant. The shikaris wanted to pursue it in the English method until I finally succeeded after much pleading and shouting to communicate to the people that all natives should be formed into a line by my personal hunter. After I and the gentlemen had taken up position in the ridge, the natives were to start walking at a signal. Truly, the wounded deer appeared after a few minutes and perished from three shots of mine and Wurmbrand’s. It was a very strong specimen, apparently a very rowdy fellow as he was scarred on the legs, on the back as well as completely cut ears. I lamented that the animal was not suitable for taxidermy. Its cuspids were beautiful.

During our hunt, the gentlemen in the valley had spent their time with children’s games such as „blind man’s buff“, „“duck, duck, goose“  etc. to the great pleasure of the chief professional hunter who couldn’t stop laughing and jumped around on his elephant. If it hadn’t been incompatible with his dignity, he would have gladly joined in.

Before a new hunt could be started, a shikari reported again that another sambar deer had been confirmed nearby. „Tisza“ then „ordered“ me and the gentlemen to take up position on the surrounding ridge top. I was gasping as I was climbing down the steep hill as fast as I could and, arrived at the bottom of a valley, had to shoot again out of an even more unfavorable position than the first time when I saw the deer. When I had fired and the mighty animal went down with much noise, followed by an avalanche of ibexes, the whole corps of shikaris approached me with loud congratulations and with funny expressions of joy.  With a satisfied smile, the chief professional hunter received me and commanded to resume the march with was made on the elephants.

On a steep stony path the caravan moved over a saddle into a long winding valley covered in high dry grass and thick thorns. During the descent over a particularly bad spot, a rocky ledge, the elephant’s sat down on their rear, then jumped down with the forelegs supported by the trunk and then drew along their rear end.

The shikaris of the advance party reported that there were unfortunately no sambar deer in the valley, so we decided to set up a hunt at an especially thick jungle ridge. This action met the fierce resistance of Harnarain who preferred to eat breakfast rather than hunt and wanted to deploy his trackers again to seek sambar deer. We could not overrule this and had to comply. After a long break when we couldn’t tolerate it any longer, we argued with the chief who finally granted us permission to undertake the hunt in the jungle.

We quickly spread out, Wurmbrand stayed at the edge of the jungle, Clam and I intended to climb to the top of the ridge to cover the upper escape route and have a good overview of the confusing jungle area. Prónay, Stockinger and Fairholme were tasked in following the trackers. The climbing of the hill was easier to say than to actually do. It was so steep and covered with smooth stone plates and rocks that we could only advance on all fours as quadrupeds. I took up position in a small gorge which I considered suitable for an escape route. After some time, the drive started but was so badly executed that not a single piece of game appeared as the drivers were evading all thicker parts of the jungle. The use of my small collection of Hindu strong language I had already learnt proved without effect as the chief displayed no more interest in  hunting that day and only appeared again with a calm demeanor and an impish smile after the fruitless drive of the hunt had ended. As long as we had enough daylight, we hunted in the plain and bagged numerous chicken and sand grouses. Wurmbrand had hunter’s luck and bagged a gazelle.

The gentlemen who did stay behind in camp, among them Kinsky, had hunted pigs and jackals in the afternoon and captured a young boar. Even Dr. von Lorenz did ride along, paying for this terrible flippancy with two unplanned contacts with Mother Earth.

The evening was devoted to writing letters as the post was to be sent off the day after. Unfortunately, it started raining violently again and continued to do so through the night. The weather is punishing us with all its caprices. Just now when we are to hunt a tiger, we have to live through a second deluge!

Links

• Ort:  Sariska, India
• ANNO – on 22.02.1893 in Austria’s newspapers.
• The k.u.k. Hof-Burgtheater plays Schiller’s „Jungfrau von Orleans“, while the k.u.k. Hof-Operntheater presents Gounod’s „Margarethe (Faust)“.

The first tiger hunt was on the program. Already at 9 o’clock in the morning, the „head shikari“, the chief professional hunter of Alwar, Harnarain, came to the camp to announce that the tiger had killed and we should be ready to depart towards 11 o’clock. He would personally join the advance party to prepare and instruct the trackers.

Thrown off an elephant once, this dignitary was limping which gave his appearance and comportment an involuntary comical aspect. Remarkable to us was the resemblance of his face with that of the former Hungarian prime minister. Thus we christened him „Tisza„. The head shikari is rather curt with everyone, even with the resident Colonel Fraser, leader of our hunting expedition, gives his orders, swears mightily on occasion but is an important man in hunting matters in the state of Alwar. Thus we as hunters have to be nice to him, especially for the sake of the tiger. I had myself introduced to him most festively. Besides being the chief professional hunter  he is also general inspector of the irrigation systems, forests and gardens. The forests will not bring much acclaim as nothing is happening in terms of reforestation and only thorns and crippled woods are growing wildly even though the area seems in many places ideal for forestry.

At 11 o’clock the large hunt was started with a big shout of „hallo“, a legion of shikaris with rifles and lances joined us who were up on the elephants. In front of a narrow very romantic gorge we made a stop to await the sign of the head shikari who had ridden ahead to the trackers. Here there were the remains of a buffalo calf killed by the tiger. Vultures were circling above the carrion or sat on the trees.

Finally, after a long wait we could see the chief professional hunter appear on his elephant on the opposite side of the valley. Now it was time to take up the hunting position. The ride of nearly three quarters of an hour through the bottom of the valley was very picturesque but tiring as we had to fight against the thorny branches of the trees that struck the haudas at every step so that our hands were bloody. It is astonishing how careful the elephants advance and how skillful they follow narrow and steep tracks which I might as well call „chamois tracks“ very safely. The hauda was shifting up and down but the elephant shows no concern but checks every step with its trunk and its foot and only takes a step on hard ground. If a stone or tree is in the way, it is cleared away with the trunk or pushed out of the way with a push of the body so that a tree breaks off due to the applied pressure of the giant.

We formed a large semi-circle in the bottom of a thickly covered side valley in which the tiger was said to be living. I was on the highest position and had climbed with my elephant up on the right ledge of the valley up to half its height to have a good view over the valley. There I stopped and waited for the things to come.

Some spots were left bare in the thick thorny bushes and I calculated where and how I would shoot if the tiger showed up. The drive started with the usual clamor as the drivers began to move down from the heights. The hunting area to be covered was rather small but out of fear the drivers advanced very slowly, in groups of 30 to 40 one after the other on the best paths without clearing the thickets in which they only threw stones, so that it took two hours. Like in Tandur! By the way, the caution of the drivers proved unnecessary as the tiger only proved his notoriety by its absence.

For the first time we saw here sambar deer or rusas (Cervus unicolor), namely a minor buck of second head,  an old animal with a calf and a hind; they looked similar to our big game but lack the beautiful figure by far and the proud and falls short of the noble posture of our king of the woods, especially as the sambar deer carries its head almost always at a downward angle and the antlers does not go beyond six points despite reaching a length of 1.25 m.

After the failed hunt we came to a small pond surrounded by palm trees and rode on the elephants back to the camp to get pellet guns and undertake a hunt into the nearby hills which netted us a large number of Indian  partridges.

Links

• Ort:  Sariska, India
• ANNO – on 21.02.1893 in Austria’s newspapers.
• The k.u.k. Hof-Burgtheater plays „Krisen“, while the k.u.k. Hof-Operntheater presents „Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor“.