The Kenneth Anderson Omnibus Vol. III by Anderson Kenneth

Author:Anderson, Kenneth [Anderson, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rupa Publications India
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Seven

Sher Khan and the Bettamugalam Man-Eater *

MANY YEARS AGO A RETIRED BRITISH ADMINISTRATOR, POPULARLY known as the Collector in those days, had acquired for himself 300 acres of jungle land on the northern slopes of the Gutherayan range of hills in the district of Salem, where he built an incredible bungalow. He built it all of stone and to the pattern of a castle.

This man loved the jungle and he preserved it at a tremendous expense to himself by engaging an army of coolies to hack away the thorny undergrowth and the lantana plants which, in those years, were just beginning to envelop the forests of southern India .

Since then the lantana has grown apace and now covers thousands of acres of Reserved Forest land. Various government departments, including the forest department, have tried and are trying in vain to eradicate this scourge. Spraying with a poisonous solution can obviously be done only on a very limited scale. A white bug has been found which multiplies in millions; it covers the lantana bushes, blackens the stem, branches, all leaves, and kills all the lantana in perhaps an acre or two of land. Then something happens to the bugs themselves: they die within a few days, from some poison absorbed from the lantana itself, which thus gains the ultimate victory.

Jungle fires rage periodically, particularly during the hot weather. The lantana is burnt to the ground, only to spring up again and flourish with the coming of the rains, fertilized by its own ashes.

Incidentally, the juice from a few freshlycrushed leaves of this plant, rubbed upon a scratch or an abrasion on the skin, will assist the wound to heal completely. It is as effective as tincture of iodine, with the added advantage that it does not irritate.

But to return to the British Collector and his 300 acres: he called his place Bettamugalam Estate, after the name given to the local sub taluk area, and his stone house he called ‘Jungly Castle’ Cleaned of the strangling lantana, the natural forest grew apace The grass that flourished in the glades between the trees attracted bison and deer, which in their turn brought their natural foes, tigers, panthers, and the still more voracious wild dogs.

Conditions then began to change. The British Collector died and Bettamugalam Estate, with Jungly Castle, was bought by an Anglo-Indian who did not have the means to keep the place up to the standard of the former owner. Once more the lantana started to encroach upon the grassy glades, and as a consequence the bison and deer decreased in numbers. But the carnivores remained and they grew hungry.

Then the Anglo-Indian died in his turn, and no legal owner came forward. Jungly Castle fell into disrepair. Villagers came on moonlit nights in bullock carts and stole the cut granite blocks, pulling down the walls to get them. For these stones, especially when they could be obtained free, offered first-class material with which to construct the walls of their own huts.

The bison had by this time vanished, and the herds or deer had almost disappeared.

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