THE TAMING OF THE JUNGLE

BY DR. C. W. DOYLE

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1899

Copyright, 1899
by J. B. Lippincott Company

Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A.

Preface

For a better understanding of this story, it will be necessary to say afew words concerning the people of the Terai,—the great tract of junglethat skirts the foothills of the Himalayas, in the Province of Kumaon.They are a simple, primitive folk, and migratory in their ways:inhabiting the interior valleys of the hills in the hot weather and themonsoon, and the foothills and the Terai during the winter.

In official reports they are described as "low-caste Hindoos;" but theyare as far removed from the low-caste Hindoos of the plains, on the onehand, as they are from the high-caste Rajpoots, who are the gentry ofKumaon, on the other. The monstrous Pantheism of the Brahmin is unknownto them, and the ritual and severe limitations of caste that shackle theformer in all the relations of life have no influence on the Padhans ofKumaon. Tending their flocks and their herds, and cultivating theirterraced fields in the summer and their patches of rye and corn in thewinter, they pass lives of Arcadian simplicity among scenes that surpassIda and Olympus in beauty, and which vie with the glades of Eden, asMilton and Tennyson described them.

Tennyson might have written that of the Terai in midwinter. And itspeople conform, as might be expected, to their environment. Life amongthem is found at first hand: their loves and hates are ingenuous, andpresent social aspects that must vanish before the march ofcivilization.

The critics may object to the manner of the courtship of Tara, as notbeing in accord with the marriage customs of the natives of India. Tothem I would reply, that the experience of a dozen years spent inintimate relations with, and in close observation of, the KumaonPadhans, has satisfied me that these children of nature are guidedstrongly by their natural feelings; and that, in the selection of theirwives, they are as often swayed by their affections as we are.

Contents

Preface
CHAPTER I. A Jungle Vendetta
CHAPTER II. Hasteen
CHAPTER III. The Hunting of Cheeta Dutt
CHAPTER IV. The Spoiling of Nyagong
CHAPTER V. The Woman in the Carriage
CHAPTER VI. For the Training of Biroo
CHAPTER VII. Chandni...