Wildlife in Shillong
As noted above, in June 1867 Thornton was ordered
to Shillong, and in July 1867 his wife and children joined him there, although
the house was not nearly ready and they had to live in the kitchen and
cow-shed. Leopards swarmed in the jungle, which had as yet been very little
cleared, and one afternoon, as they were sitting at tea outside the cow-shed, a
leopard bounded from the jungle close by and carried off their little dog from
beside them.
They had to watch their children carefully and shut
them up as soon as evening approached, for there was serious danger from
leopards when they first settled at Shillong. Their house was finished before
the end of 1867, and by that time they were very comfortably settled at the new
Station. The jungle had been mostly cut down, and the leopards destroyed or
scared away.
E.P. Philemon mentions that
wild animals including elephants, bisons, tigers, bears, leopards, wild dogs,
wild buffaloes in the lower ranges, several kinds of deer were found roaming in
and around the villages[1].
The villagers were afraid of walking alone from Mawkhar to Laban or to
Laitumkhrah. If a villager went to another village, he had to spend the night
there and return the next morning. It appeared that there were thick forests
between villages and wild animals freely roamed even during the day.
Philemon also refers to the Suna Valley,
locally known as "Ka Them Suna Pani",
which was covered by a dense forest of tall pine trees. It was located very
close to Mawlai bridge on the Shillong-Guwahati road. The valley was a peaceful
resort and the home of wild animals like deer, antelopes, leopards, langoors,
monkeys, wild cats, rabbits, etc. Many kinds of birds, which were not found in
any other places in the country, were seen in the Suna Valley.
In 1867, Pollock recounted a
fascinating tale of wildlife in and around the Shillong region. When the Sylhet
plains were inundated the deer found their way up the hills, and tigers and
panthers followed them. Pollock had seen the fresh pugs of a tiger in the
verandah of the Dak Bungalow at Cherra Poonghie. Tigers used to find their way
up to Shillong too, and Pollock killed several there on foot, and the Gurkhas
accounted for others. Panthers, or rather leopards, were very plentiful.
Pollock shot a good many, more were caught in traps, but it was almost
impossible to keep a dog, for they preyed on them.
In about 1865, Pollock
recorded that tigers were not so frequent at Shillong as at Cherra, but his
party killed 7 altogether whilst he was resident there[2].
The following article appeared in the New York Times of 25 June 1882:
“...When the plains of Sylhet are covered with water, tigers ascend the hills, and are very
plentiful in Cherra Poonghie, often
leaving their marks not only within the compounds of the houses, but in the
verandas themselves, and no one dare venture out at night without tom-toms and
torches. At Shillong we and the
sepoys killed several on foot one year. [The
London Field].
Pollock goes
on to describe other wildlife prevalent at the time:
“Solitary snipe also
exist in small numbers, but nobody knew where to look for them[3].
I killed, in one day, in the Shillong hills, seven couple of these birds,
besides losing three birds killed and three missed, and one wood-cock killed,
all out of the same patch of high reeds, besides couple of snipe.
Both in Burmah and Assam
bears are very numerous, yet they are very difficult to find...I never came
across one in Burmah, and shot only seven in the plains of Assam, and fewer in
the Shillong hills.”
Pollock also recounts that at
Shillong, Major Montagu, the commissariat officer, caught in a trap, in his own
compound, twelve leopards and a small tiger in twelve months[4].
He also stated that:
“Whether the bull gayal[5] in the Zoo is a pure
one or only a hybrid, he is about as fine a specimen, barring the height, which
is somewhat less, as is to be found in the East[6]. At the foot of the
Bhootan range wild hybrids are plentiful and very savage. The Bhooteahs and
other hill people bring down tame ones to the fair at Oodulgheery in Darrung,
and Europeans often buy them. If you transport them to Shillong at once they
will live and thrive moderately, but if kept in the plains in the hot weather
they die very soon”.
From Pollock
we learn that in and around Shillong, the Ghoorka sepoys were encouraged to
shoot whenever there was a chance, with the most beneficial results, as it made
them good shots, and taught them to go noiselessly through the jungles. The
first tiger his party heard of was killed by the sepoys before they could get there. It was a fine young male about
8 feet long. On another occasion a pony was killed in a ravine close by, and Bourne,
of the 44th (Sylhet) Regiment of Bengal Native (Light) Infantry, sat up over
it.
The tiger came
and Bourne fired, and thought he had hit it, so early the next morning he,
Colonel Hicks, Williams, Ommanney, and Pollock went after it, with some 50
sepoys as beaters. On reaching the place they found that the kill had been
dragged away and devoured, so they thought Bourne was mistaken in thinking he
had wounded the animal, for they thought there was but one tiger. However, they
followed the tracks for about a mile, and beat over hills covered with grass
from 3-4 feet high, with a sprinkling of pine trees about.
Suddenly not one, but three
tigers jumped up and received a hurried fire. One was badly wounded, and left a
piece of flesh on the ground. They all ran down into a ravine, into which they
followed. The ground was very nasty, and they could not see beyond a few feet
in front of them. The sepoys behaved admirably, keeping line as if on parade.
Pollock and his companions told them to load with ball-cartridge, and a running
fight ensued which lasted for the better part of an hour, all three tigers being
more or less wounded. The ground became progressively worse, with boulders of
rock and deep fissures. Into one of these the tigers sought refuge, and
whenever they tried to dislodge them they charged savagely.
One large tiger knocked over
three sepoys one after the other, but
not a man retreated. As the place they were in was unapproachable without great
risk, they reluctantly desisted, and carried the fallen men to the hospital,
where they recovered in about a fortnight. No great damage had been done, one
man lost an ear, and all were more or less clawed, but none bitten. One tiger
was picked up dead the next day, and another two days afterwards by the
Coseyahs, and the third was seen wandering about very ill for a few days, and
then disappeared, presumed dead.
Pollock reports that another
day Colonel Hicks and Williams had a shot at a tiger, but it got away. Two days
later a Cossyah came in and told them he had marked a tiger down, so Colonel
Hicks, Williams, and Pollock went after it, with a few sepoys as beaters. They saw a lot of men on the heights surrounding
the rocky bed of a mountain rivulet.
Up this they advanced, and
soon came upon the tiger and killed it at the first volley, and on examination
found it was the one fired at by Colonel Hicks the day before. It was in a sad
state, and evidently could not have lived through the day, as the wound, one
through the body, had begun to mortify. Two other tigers were killed without
any adventures, one by the sepoys,
and the other by Pollock’s party.
Pollock also mentions that
leopards were constantly killed and they were very destructive to dogs. One day
they all went after a tiger or leopard, no one knew which, and after beating
about some time a leopard broke across and was wounded, but hid himself in a ravine,
where they could not find him. Pollock sent for his two elephants, which
happened to be in the Station, and they beat everywhere, but still there was no
leopard.
There was a hollow passage
in the ravine through which the water ran, and they thought it had taken refuge
there, and fired several shots into it without effect. The leopard was gone, but
no one knew where. So Williams and Pollock walked up the hill-side and had
nearly reached the top, when there was a yell, then a dead silence, followed by
a shot. This made them run down again, but all was over before they reached the
bottom, where they found the leopard dead, cut to pieces.
It appears a sepoy in passing a bush, in the very
midst of which the elephants had been beating, trod on the leopard's tail, so
snugly was it hidden. In a second it sprang on the man's shoulders, biting
Jovrai who was with Captain Trevor, the Superintending Engineer, and Captain
Skinner, Superintendent of Police.
Pollock also reports that
there was very fair woodcock-shooting (a close relative of the snipe - they
have stocky bodies, brown and blackish plumage and long slender bills) about
Shillong, enroute to the Shillong Peak, there were some sholas (type of high-altitude stunted evergreen forest found in
southern India) with wet bottoms, these were sure finds for woodcock in the
season but they lay very close, and would not rise till a man almost treads on
them.
General Blake and Pollock
shot several there. Pollock had also shot them there, once out snipe-shooting
(a wading bird characterized by a very long, slender bill) near the hockey
ground, and once with a lot of solitary snipe he put up and shot a woodcock.
This was in a valley about 3 miles north of Shillong Station. There were heavy
patches of long, wet reeds, and in these there were always solitary snipes to
be found in the season.
[1]Philemon, E. P. 1995, Cherrapunjee : the arena of rain : a history and guide to Sohra & Shillong / E.P. Philemon Spectrum Publications, Guwahati.
[2]Sport in
British Burmah, Assam, and the Cassyah and Jyntiah Hills. By Lieutenant Colonel
Pollock, Madras Staff Corps, Volume 1, Chapman and Hall, London, 1879.
[3]Sport in British Burmah, Assam, and the Cassyah and Jyntiah
hills. with notes of sport in the hilly districts of the northern division,
Madras Presidency, indicating the best localities in those countries for sport,
with natural history notes, illustrations of the people, scenery, and game,
together with maps to guide the traveller or sportsman, and hints on weapons,
fishing-tackle, etc., best suited for killing game met with in those provinces.
Volume 1.
Lieutenant Colonel Fitz William Thomas Pollock, Chapman and Hall, London, 1879.
Harvard University.Pg.35,110.
[4]Wild
sports of Burma and Assam (1900), Colonel Fitz William Pollock, Late Staff
Corps, and W. S, Thom, Assistant District Superintendant of Police, Burma.
Hurst and Blackett Limited, London,1900.University of California.Pg.71.
[5]The gaur (Bos frontalis) is a large,
dark-coated forest animal of South Asia and Southeast Asia. The domesticated
form of the gaur is called gayal or mithun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur.
[6]Wild
sports of Burma and Assam (1900), Colonel Fitz William Pollock, Late Staff
Corps, and W. S, Thom, Assistant District Superintendant of Police, Burma.
Hurst and Blackett Limited, London,1900. University of California.Pg. 101.
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