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This was told me in 1908 by Mr. Thomson, who as District Magistrate had held an inquest at the time upon the tragedy; and his recollections have been verified and supplemented by Mr. Webb, the present District Magistrate. The depositions have, in ordinary course, been destroyed; but the details that are still recoverable seem to be sufficient.

The time was 1900, and the scene was Zwettaw village, Thongwa township, not far from Rangoon. The old headman, U Myat Thin, described in confidential official registers which he never saw as “an easy-going old Talaing“ or native of Lower Burma, was sauntering outside the village about midday, watching his grandchildren, who were playing near him. Suddenly a tiger appeared and seized and carried away his grand-daughter. That kind of thing is done with the speed of thought; and Hercules himself, in the old man’s place, could not have prevented the tiger getting the child. [55] Probably Hercules himself, if unarmed, would have done no more than the old man did, namely, run into the village and shout for help.

But who was to help? Every man and woman fit for work was away in the fields. Only the old people and children were in the village. He took a spear from his house, and three other old men like himself did likewise. The four of them followed the tiger at once, and tracked and ran with such goodwill that they overtook him, though they were too late to save the child.

One of the finest traits of character which I have noticed in Burmese villagers is their readiness to fight to recover from a wild beast the body of any person it has killed. Let a European try to take a bone from a bulldog and he may be able to guess, faintly and distantly, at what these four old men were undertaking when they closed with a famishing tiger, to fight him for his freshly-killed food. They had no firearms, no missiles of any kind, not even bows and arrows. They had nothing to rely on but each other, as, with one spirit, they attacked him, thrusting at his vitals with their spears. The fight was too unequal. He killed one of them, and with a stroke of his paw he broke the shoulder of the grandfather, and so escaped away.

The news was sent to the men in the fields, and as [56] soon as possible a new party took up the trail, including policemen with guns. They had not far to go. In the next field they found the tiger—dead. He had been gored to death by a herd of buffaloes that had been peacefully grazing there when he came among them. If he had not been wounded they would probably not have attacked him, or he would not have lingered long enough to give them a chance. So the old men had not fought in vain.

A herdsman of experience has said to me: “If the tiger was bleeding, the sight of his blood would make the buffaloes charge him.” That coincides with a red rag irritating a bull in England; but another herdsman said it was the smell, and several thought the wound made no difference. “A buffalo will not stand to be eaten by a tiger, but at sight of one stampedes, either at him or away from him.” Very likely, indeed.

“I think the grandfather recovered,” continued Mr. Thomson. “I know I recommended a good reward and that it was paid.” It appears from the official registers that he was quite well before the end of the year. On 12th December 1900 the Assistant Commissioner felt bound to note, as a matter of business: “The daily pilgrimage to the local Kyaung (a Buddhist monastery) is the end [57] of his existence now, I think.” Why not? In the heroic days of Greece a time of prayer was deemed the fittest ending to a well-spent life.

It was not till 29th June 1908 that the registers tell of him what has some day to be told of us all—“Deceased. For successor see …”

So far as can be discovered, the brave old man paid no heed whatever to the rewards, or to what was thought about him. It was right to honour such gallantry in every possible way; but the deed was one no money could have purchased, and the story is one I like to tell whenever I hear anybody who knows no better talking of the “cowardice of the Burmans.”