Tiger holidays. Yuri Yankovsky - half a century of tiger hunting

Burnings have never occurred in this economy; for decades, beautiful forests of almost all Far Eastern species have risen. Castle house, deer park, horses, ginseng, fishing constantly attracted the attention of nature lovers and scientists. The future President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Komarov, poet Balmont, writer Arseniev, naturalists Dybovsky, Moltrecht, Desulavi visited Sidemi. The governors made it a rule to demonstrate the Yankovsky Peninsula to all distinguished guests of Vladivostok. The business flourished...

However, by the summer of 1922, political clouds were gathering over the region. The civil war was coming to an end, the white armies were retreating to Manchuria, Korea, China. Yuri Mikhailovich understood what awaited him as a landowner. And he decided to emigrate to Korea. Fortunately, I visited there in my youth, had many friends from among the former workers of the estate. Thanks to his grandfather, the name Yankovsky was very popular in the Land of Morning Coolness. So, in the autumn of the 22nd, all the households, workers and employees who wished to leave, crossed the border river Tumangan, some on horseback, some on the icebreaking boat “Phantom”.

The first years of emigration in the Korean city of Seisin (Chongjin) were very difficult. To provide for each refugee, the father was forced to sell everything that he managed to seize in a hurry from the peninsula: horses, cows, a boat, a car, and many other property. They lived poorly, earned their living as best they could. One of the sources of income was hunting.

Only a few years later, Yuri Mikhailovich managed to acquire a plot of land near the hot springs of Ompo, 50 kilometers south of Seishin. He created a farm and a summer cottage there, which they called Novina. Summer residents and tourists from Harbin, Seoul, Tianjin, Shanghai and even from Europe were received at this resort in the summer. They bred spotted deer caught in the forest, grew a garden, started an apiary, and dairy cows. Bought two cars.

The most popular and favorite pastime of the male half of the Yankovsky family has always been hunting. On pheasants and geese, on goats, wild boars, bears, pantache deer and deer, on predators. But the number one trophy has always been the tiger.

My father grew up in those years when tigers were implacable enemies of livestock breeders. They crushed not only horses and deer, but also cows, pigs, and dogs. Fifteen-year-old youth Yuri and his brother Alexander killed a tigress who pulled their beloved “uncle” Platon Fedorov off his horse and vomited in the snow. All this undoubtedly gave rise to a special passion for hunting tigers. In the end, the father himself fell into the clutches of an angry tigress. But at the last moment, his son Yuri saved him.

In 1944, my father's book "Half a century of tiger hunting" was published in Harbin, which included a series of non-fictional stories.

The life of Yuri Mikhailovich ended tragically. After the war with Japan, he was arrested, sentenced to 10 years and transferred to Siberia. Our last meeting took place in the camp on the First River of Vladivostok in May 1947. We couldn't even hug. I was sitting in the SAM - a high-security zone, and we only managed to shake hands through the cells of the wire fence. And later, due to an inscrutable hard labor fate, the father met in the Siberian stage and spent two days next to him on the bunk with his youngest son Yuri, who was being taken to Kazakhstan. That “smallest” son, who a few years earlier had shot a tigress who crushed his father. They managed to remember a lot of the life of our once large friendly family during these two days ...

My wife and I, freed, corresponded with my father and waited for him in Magadan. In Taishet, having just served his ten-year term, his niece, the daughter of his younger brother Pavel, who was killed by a terrorist in Shanghai, was waiting to go together. Father's letters from the camp have been preserved, very calm, philosophical letters.

He reported that for the last five years he had been working in the “zone” as a janitor, writing his memoirs about Primorye, Korea, and America. He gets five rubles a month for his work, but that's enough for paper and pencils. I transferred him three hundred rubles. He thanked, said that now he was “rich as Croesus” ...

Father did not live to see his release for some weeks, maybe days. He caught a cold and died in the camp in May 1956. His last address on the envelopes: "Irkutsk region, Chunsky district, post office Sosnovka, post box 90/2-237." It is somewhere on the road Taishet - Bratsk.

I didn't get to visit his grave. Camp cemeteries, as a rule, were razed to the ground a long time ago.

Unfortunately, I remember my grandfather only from the stories of the elders. Our only meeting took place when I was not two years old. Then my grandfather bequeathed to me a wonderful Sauer triple-barreled shotgun.

My parents told me: on my last trip to Sochi, already saying goodbye, my grandfather picked me up, brought me to the wall of the office and, forcing me to touch the gun hanging there with his hand, said:

When you grow up, it will be yours!

It was an excellent hunting weapon made in Germany according to his design. Two upper smooth barrels 16-gauge, lower rifled, chambered for a strong military cartridge of the caliber of the Russian three-ruler. Of course, still trigger: the left trigger, when moving the lever, worked on the bullet barrel.

But my father did not allow me to use my grandfather's gift for a long time.

You have to start hunting with a ramrod, like me, only then you will develop into a real, seasoned shooter and hunter. From modern, and even rapid-fire ones, you will have time to learn how to shoot ...

Looking back, I cannot but agree with his views: a ramrod from childhood is a big and serious school for a hunter for life. It also teaches you to sneak up closer, and to hit only for sure from the first shot - after all, there is nothing more to count on. At the time, this decision seemed very unfair to me.

But now I’m already thirteen, I got the right to own my grandfather’s gun after five years of “ram-rod” training ...

During spring break, my father promised to take me and my brother, who at that time was only ten years old, to the mountains on wild boars.

Gotta get the ham by Easter. Get ready to go tomorrow...

In the Far East, under the fortieth parallel by the sea in March, it is almost spring, but there is still a lot of snow in the high mountains, and snowdrifts are barely passable on the ridges. Frosty in the shade, melting in the sun. The sunlit slopes are already all yellow, in the seas - winter.

Having reached by train under the very pass of the stanovoy ridge, we went a few kilometers from the small taiga station and stopped in the familiar blue fanze, which was lonesomely stuck at the foot of one of the spurs of the powerful stanovik. This Korean hut was plastered with an unusual color of clay, which really made it look completely blue.

We, as old acquaintances, were greeted especially cordially. The hunters helping to fight the robbers of the already poor arable lands - wild boars, were blood allies, enjoyed great respect and care. We were given an u-pan - the "upper" room, intended for the elder in the house or for guests. After all, Fanza is one-storeyed ... We comfortably settled down on clean mats of a warm, heated floor - kana. In winter it is a special treat.

Pasted over with special “silk” paper, the door opens directly onto the open porch. In the middle of the door is a tiny piece of glass the size of a matchbox. A dog barked in the street, the old man put his eye to the glass - he can see everything ...

On the first morning, dad went alone, leaving us complete freedom of action. I remember we left after Maslenitsa, and they gave us pancakes for the journey. My brother and I didn't have backpacks yet; we put pancakes, salt, and matches in little white flour bags, tucked them into our belts, and set off. I had the famous grandfather's three-barreled rifle and a folding knife on a string in my pocket. My brother has only a penknife. Who were we looking for? Probably hazel grouse or hares, dreaming, of course, of a wild boar. But they climbed mostly on the steep sun in the oak forests, on the strongly rustling fallen leaf, and until dinner they did not find anything. The sun was already warming well, the pancakes were haunting, and a little after noon we sat down in the middle of the southern slope in an old boar hayne, pulled out our bags ...

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Yuri Mikhailovich Yankovsky

Yu. M. Yankovsky. Korea, 1930s

To the reader

The book you hold in your hands is unique. Published in 1944 in Harbin, by the T-vo Zarya publishing house, with a circulation of five hundred copies, Yury Mikhailovich Yankovsky's book "Half a century of tiger hunting" is published in our country for the first time.

With it, the Ussuri publishing house opens the local history series Arseniev Library, named after the outstanding traveler, scientist and writer Vladimir Klavdievich Arseniev. V. K. Arseniev devoted thirty years of his life to the study of our Far East, becoming an unsurpassed connoisseur of it in all respects.

The "Arseniev Library" will include books by famous and yet little-known authors, patriots of the region, many of which have never been republished after 1917.

The publishing house would like to thank the curators of the V. K. Arseniev Primorsky Museum of Local Lore, who kindly provided rare photographs of the Yankovsky family for publication.

The text of the book is published in modern spelling and punctuation, with the exception of rare cases that bear signs of the author's style or hunting terminology, and obvious typos of the Harbin edition have also been corrected.

Yankovsky and Yankovsky

My father, Yuri Mikhailovich Yankovsky, was born into the family of a Polish gentry, Pan Mikhail Yankovsky, who served the tsarist hard labor for participating in the Polish Uprising of 1863, and a native Siberian, Irkutsk Olga Lukinichna, nee Kuznetsova. Grandfather, having worked for five years after hard labor as a manager of a gold mine on Askold Island, rented and later acquired ownership of a virgin mountainous peninsula on the shores of the Amur Bay near Vladivostok, which now bears his name.

The economy was started from scratch. The start of the stud farm in 1879 was the nondescript Russian stallion Ataman and a dozen tiny Korean, Manchurian and Mongolian fillies, four of which, with all their offspring, were killed by a tiger in the very first winter. Antler reindeer breeding - from three sika deer that wandered onto the peninsula from the taiga. The first plantation of ginseng in Russia arose from a handful of roots and seeds delivered by aborigines - tazy. They also suggested that this peninsula bears the ancient Udege name of Sidemi.

Over the years, four sons and two daughters appeared in the Yankovsky family. And everyone worked together. "Kazakhchikov" - as the grandfather noted in his notes - were not kept on the farm, in all matters they managed on their own. Only Korean settlers worked as shepherds of the growing herd.

The owners of Sidemi from the first steps met, it seemed, with insurmountable obstacles. In those years, in addition to the four-legged predators - tigers, leopards, wolves and bears, the settlers were robbed by professional Manchu hunhuzi robbers: the unguarded border ran only fifty kilometers away. During their brutal attack in June 1879, the wife of a neighbor, Captain Huck, his workers and six-year-old son were killed. Yankovsky was left with a crippled hand. However, this did not stop the stubborn pioneers: Huck married again, continued whaling on his schooner. Yankovsky did not leave the idea of ​​breeding and improving his favorite horses. With just one assistant, he set off along the sledge-driver's path for five and a half thousand miles and drove under his own power from Western Siberia, risking his life more than once, a herd of excellent producers of the Tomsk breed, spending ten months on this journey! And son Yuri, a twenty-year-old guy, went to America, where he studied horse breeding as a simple cowboy of the Texas prairies and in the third year he brought thoroughbred English horses from San Francisco on a steamer.

By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the Sidemi estate became a kind of model for the Ussuri region. Hundreds of beautiful horses replenished the cavalry and artillery units, pulled the plow of the Russian migrant farmer, performed with brilliance at the races and races, decorating the shelves of the living room of the old house with silver goblets.

The herd of deer over the years has exceeded two thousand heads. The ginseng plantation had tens of thousands of roots.

The eldest son of M. I. Yankovsky from his first marriage, Alexander separated early. A visionary and a fidget, he either built locks on the Panama Canal, or mined gold in the Klondike, or traveled around Kamchatka. Yury became the main owner of Sidemi. Another brother, Jan, organized reindeer breeding on Cape Gamow, not far from Posyet. The younger, Pavel, went to the German, fought on the Western Front, and then - as part of the Russian Expeditionary Force in allied France. Having handed over the affairs to Yuri and his wife, Mikhail Ivanovich left for treatment, first in Semipalatinsk, and from there to the Caucasus. He died of pneumonia in Sochi in 1912.

Yuri Mikhailovich married the eldest daughter of the Vladivostok steamship owner, sinologist M. G. Shevelev - Margarita. He attached a stately white castle with a tower to the old grandfather's house-fortress, where a blue flag fluttered on the flagpole with the black and gold coat of arms of the old Polish family "Novina" ...

To fight against four-legged and two-legged predators, huntsmen's lodges were installed on all the peaks of the mountains, connected by telephones with the central estate. (By the way, now, fifty years later, the Amursky reindeer state farm that currently exists on the peninsula still does not have telephones.) I remember well the organization of work in those years. Then there were no morning five-minute stretched hours. All orders for tomorrow were given in the evening, and each employee knew what to do, what he was responsible for. Father was already in the saddle with the dawn, going around all the works, often outside the peninsula. And two armed duty officers rode daily around the peninsula.

Burnings have never arisen in this economy; for decades, beautiful forests have risen, almost all of the Far Eastern species. Castle house, deer park, horses, ginseng, fishing constantly attracted the attention of nature lovers and scientists. The future President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Komarov, poet Balmont, writer Arseniev, naturalists Dybovsky, Moltrecht, Desulavi visited Sidemi. The governors made it a rule to demonstrate the Yankovsky Peninsula to all distinguished guests of Vladivostok. The business flourished...

By the summer of 1922, however, political clouds had gathered. The civil war was coming to an end, the white armies were retreating to Manchuria, Korea, China. Yuri Mikhailovich understood that, despite all the services to the region, he was waiting for him as a landowner. And he decided to emigrate to Korea. Fortunately, I visited there in my youth, had many friends from among the former workers of the estate. Thanks to his grandfather, the name Yankovsky was very popular in the Land of Morning Calm. There was also contact with the Japanese administration of this country. So, in the fall of 1922, all the households, workers and employees who wished to leave, crossed the border river Tumangan: some on horseback, some on the icebreaking boat "Phantom".

The first years of emigration in the Korean city of Seisin (Chongjin) were very difficult. To provide for each of the refugees, the father was forced to sell everything that he managed to seize in a hurry from the peninsula: horses, cows, a boat, a car, and many other property. They lived poorly, earned their living as best they could. One of the sources of income was hunting.

Only a few years later, Yuri Mikhailovich managed to acquire a plot of land near the hot springs of Ompo, fifty kilometers south of Seishin. He created a farm and a summer cottage there, which they called Novina. The soul of Novina was, of course, our mother, but, alas, she was buried there. And in the summer, summer residents and tourists from Harbin, Seoul, Tianjin, Shanghai and even from Europe were received at this resort. They tamed spotted deer caught in the forest, grew a garden, started an apiary, dairy cows. Bought a couple of cars. And yet, hunting has always been the most popular and favorite pastime of the male half of the Yankovskys. On pheasants and geese, on goats, wild boars, bears, pantache deer and deer, on predators. But the number one trophy has always been the tiger.

Hello young writer! It's good that you decided to read the fairy tale "Tiger Hunters (Korean fairy tale)" in it you will find folk wisdom that has been edified for generations. The entire surrounding space, depicted with vivid visual images, is permeated with kindness, friendship, fidelity and indescribable delight. A person's worldview is formed gradually, and such works are extremely important and instructive for our young readers. Despite the fact that all fairy tales are fantasy, however, they often retain the logic and sequence of events. In the works, diminutive descriptions of nature are often used, making the picture that appears even more saturated. The protagonist always wins not by deceit and cunning, but by kindness, gentleness and love - this is the main quality of children's characters. It is sweet and joyful to plunge into a world in which love, nobility, morality and selflessness always prevail, with which the reader is edified. The fairy tale "Tiger Hunters (Korean Tale)" can be read for free online countless times without losing love and hunting for this creation.

In the province of Hamgyong-gdo, in the city of Kilju, twenty years ago there was a society of tiger hunters. The members of the society were all very rich people. One poor young man tried in vain to penetrate this society and become a member of it.
— Where are you going? the chairman told him. “Don't you know that a poor man is not a man. Get away.
But nevertheless, this young man, denying himself everything, made himself the same fine steel spear, and perhaps better, than all the other hunters had. And when they once went to the mountains to hunt tigers, he went too.
At a halt at the ravine, he approached them and once again asked them to accept him.
But they were having a good time, and they had nothing to do with the poor man; they laughed again and drove him away.
“Well, then,” said the young man, “you drink to yourselves here and be merry, and I will go alone.”
“Go, madman,” they told him, “if you want to be torn apart by tigers.”
“Death by a tiger is better than hurt by you.
And he went into the forest. When he climbed into the thicket, he saw a huge striped tiger. The tiger, like a cat, played with him: now he jumped closer to him, then he jumped further, lay down and, looking at him, merrily shook his huge tail from side to side.
All this went on until the hunter, as usual, called out contemptuously to the tiger:
“Da chan podara (take my spear)!”
And at the same moment the tiger rushed at the hunter and, meeting the spear, clamped it in his teeth. But then, with superhuman strength, the hunter thrust a spear into his throat, and the tiger fell dead to the ground.
It was a tigress, and the tiger, her husband, was already rushing to her aid.
He no longer needed to shout: “Take the spear!” - he himself with a terrible jump, as soon as he saw the hunter, rushed at him.
The hunter managed to substitute his spear and, in turn, stuck it in his throat.
He dragged two dead tigers into the bushes and left their tails on the road.
And then he returned to the feasting hunters.
- Well? Got a lot of tigers?
“I found two, but I couldn’t deal with them and came to ask for your help.
- This is another matter: lead and show.
They abandoned the feast and went after the hunter. Dear they laughed at him:
- What, I didn’t want to die, he came for us ...
- Go quietly, - the poor hunter ordered, - the tigers are close.
They should have been silent. Now he was already the eldest between them.
“Here are the tigers,” the hunter pointed to the tails of the tigers.
Then they all lined up and shouted:
- Take my spear!
But the dead tigers did not move.
Then the poor hunter said:
- They have already taken one spear, and now they only need to be dragged to the city; take them and carry them.

Tales of a South Ussuri hunter (I. Almazov)

* (From the journal "Nature and Hunting", 1890, No. 4, pp. 73 - 103.)

In the morning, waking up and not yet looking out the window, only by the tone of the ceiling and walls and the reflection on the tables and chairs you guess that it snowed. Although it’s good for hunting powder, it always brings cold to my soul and it’s a pity to say goodbye to the changed familiar neighborhood covered with snow for a long winter time.

The winter here is harsh, with loose and creaky snow, and if it warms up in the sun, then there is no real ski crust - only a light crust comes up, which, breaking under the foot, warns a cautious animal. Hazel and oak forests here do not shed their leaves for the winter, freezing, they ring when walking on them, like metal. In these places, the radical winter, that is, from the finally established snow until the arrival of the earliest duck, when the sun is already beginning to shine through and decent thawed patches on the rivers, stretches from mid-November to mid-March, - therefore, four months, and around Christmas, more than a crescent moon, frost will press degrees at 25-30.

Quite a lot of animals are caught on the first powders: the snow is soft, fine, wet, walking is not audible, the nights are warm. A cedar cone that has fallen from the woods and an oak acorn is still upstairs, and various animals walk everywhere. It is convenient to follow it, and the main scourge - the midge, which still persists even at the first frost, does not exist at this time, and every animal is fat and with a good skin.

With the first snow comes the move of the Barley goat *. This is the most profitable article of the local industrialists. For years, constant places of goat crossings have already been noticed, and everyone who has rifles goes out on this hunt, the warning of which is thick snowfall and advanced small parties of goats.

* (Siberian roe deer with still incompletely regrown winter hair. Ed.)

The whole hunt consists in the fact that with the light the shooters sit down along the paths in those places where goats mainly go: they stock up on an unlimited number of cartridges and even take several rifles. Shooting at the herds goes without counting. They shoot in the middle of the herds huddled together from the first shots, and sometimes they beat the goats at long distances, raising the sight. With a well-calculated sight, it often happens that with one bullet two or three goats are knocked out at a time. Goats, of course, are not picked up until the passage of the herds, and even until the evening, but they only try to release more cartridges.

In the main directions of the course, roe deer go mainly in herds of 60, 100 or more heads, and small herds also go along the sides.

Goats at this time are valued quite differently: it happens that meat costs from 1 to 2 rubles per pood; it happens that a goat costs a ruble, and a skin is 50 kopecks, and sometimes the whole goat, together with the skin, is valued at about 1 ruble for a round bill.

In one barrel move, the duration of which depends on the consistency of the snow that has fallen, driving the goat to less snowy and more abundant places, as they say, a good hunter gets up to 100 or more carcasses.

Beaten game goes by sleigh to Nikolskoye, to Vladivostok. The skins are dressed in the villages and are sold mostly already sewn into fur coats, which save inexperienced travelers (who sold warm coats) from frost. Poorly dressed skins are used by foreigners instead of mattresses and for other household crafts.

Many goats die during this move both from hunters and from the beast. It’s good that our side is not full of wolves, otherwise I imagine how quickly this noble animal, dear to the hunter, would be transferred. It seems to me that only the primordial hatred between the cat and dog breeds can explain the fact that here wolves come across very rarely, and even more so in such settlements where the appearance of a tiger has already become a rarity.

Frosts intensified, snow deeper. The goats have already passed, and all the animals huddle in warm pads and cedar forests. The hunt has become difficult because of the noise of snow and bushes, and it is rare for an avid hunter, after wandering almost a whole day, to meet a solitary goat that has not yet left.

Bear lairs are not broken here, and they find little. Occasionally foreigners beat the bear in their dens with spears during sable hunting.

The wild boar in the cedar forests is cautious and quickly leaves through the deep loose snow; red deer too; and the skis still do not hold at all, especially in places where there are cedars and where there is little sun and cold. Of course, a good industrialist who has time and patience is open to hunting at this time. But these are few, and I'm talking about the majority.

A reasonable hunter hangs up a heavy rifle at this time, having cleaned and oiled it for future use for several months, and only occasionally examines it, and in his mind lovingly goes over the past days and builds the most radiant pictures for the future.

The place of the resting serious girlfriend of the hunter - the Berdanka - was taken by the employee for fun and the less beloved little bullet. In years that are fruitful for black grouse, she and the bored hunter have enough work at the most reluctant time.

I will not describe the shooting of this bird in the fall from the approach, without stuffed animals and without surge, since this is the most common hunting, and we differ only in that a rifle is preferred to a shotgun, as it makes it possible to shoot at a longer distance, and in that the bullet, having hit, it rarely does not kill the bird, but at the same time, when it misses, it does not frighten it and its neighbors. If the shooter is well covered and successfully adjusted the fly to the distance, then the bird, as if enchanted, sits, listening to the music of flying bullets ... And even I happened to notice that when you raise it a little, the bird seems to be pushed by something from above, and it clings to the branch, but does not fly away.

Dense tall and elm islands along the banks and birch forests in the swamps are a favorite shelter for black grouse, and when the snow is shallow and there was a crop of acorns, black grouse feed on the mountains for a long time.

At the same time, hunting for hazel grouse is good, hunting for pheasants that are approaching housing is not bad, especially where there are grain luggage.

But then the snow increased, the frosts hit harder - this hunt also ended, and the numerous paths trodden by man along the banks of rivers and springs, along the tops of the ridges, the outskirts of the forests, noticeably fell asleep and shortened; only paths remained between residential buildings, to service buildings and - more thorough - to a comrade for a screw or a glass of vodka, and to posts to a money box and a powder cellar ...

Man, like the beast, left the necessary paths for himself. The beast also took refuge in warm hollows, in cedar forests and near unfrozen springs: there is his drink, lodging and food.

It is quiet in the cedar forests: neither frost nor wind takes it, there is no frost at all and the snow is finer. The bears climbed into the most remote sivers and cliffs, and rare of them did not lie down in the den. A wild boar digs a cedar cone from under the snow and sometimes crawls out onto artisanal oak and walnut sunflowers, if they are not very stuck and it is not difficult to get a walnut that has fallen in the fall.

The tiger, like a shepherd, stays close to the boar and feasts on pigs and piglets as needed. The red deer, the goat - all crashed in the warm padya and also, mainly on the outskirts of the cedar forests, chew oak leaves that did not crumble, bark and twigs from the bushes, in some places high dead grass sticking out near the springs.

It's hard for everyone at this time, and it's cold, and hungry, and boring. Silence in the taiga; rarely where the wood will crack from the frost or the crow will croak, having broken, as if announced, it is not known where and why.

The local unselfish hare *, far behind his Russian counterpart in both height and prowess, is afraid to appear in the light of day and climbs the most difficult ravines with bushes and deadwood: you will never see him not only like that, but also with a dog, and if you happen to pick him up , then immediately disappear somewhere, as it falls into the ground, it even happened to get them from empty fallen trees.

I am silent about sable and squirrel, since this is the business of industrialists, and then mainly foreigners (Golds, Orochen, Tungus and others) *, - and I myself, by a sinful deed, only once saw a sable - this nimble animal - and even then I didn’t at the time of his fur.

* (Now these peoples are called Nanai, Orochi, Evenki. Ed.)

In fact, snow begins to fall here about the middle of October and is held by unstable powders until the end of it, and is finally set in the first half of November. Only up to this time can the time be considered favorable for the hunter.

The February sun heats the sun so much that the most sheer places, mostly stones, quickly become bare: in the valleys and sloping sunny places, crust freezes overnight and it becomes possible to drive the beast on skis until almost noon. Even more difficult times have come for the red deer and, especially, roe deer: a poorly armed gold beats them at this time, not needing a rifle. With one knife or a spear on skis, he easily catches up with a roe deer or drives a red deer, which, having cut their legs and exhausted themselves, in the deep frozen snow, defenseless, with a roar, often fall under the blows of a knife in whole herds (goats).

The deer in this case are mostly pursued with dogs, which even the Koreans do - they are not hunters at all.

The main skill of the golds is to drive the goats out into the big sun, since in the siver the snow is completely loose and deep and the beast freely leaves the skiers. But since the goats were caught in a good light forest sunbath, then you just need to see this persecution! On skis, one or two, deftly wrapping the found herd, without breaking it and without haste, they drive the roe deer to a good place, that is, to a long sun with light forests.

Once this is achieved, the race begins.

Thin-legged, lean gold on his light skis rushes with terrifying speed both from top to bottom and along the slope, wriggling deftly between the trees. In order to scare the goats more, he sometimes roars wildly at the top of his lungs, brandishing a spear or a hat. Crazy goats, falling through the rather hard and deep snow, fight with all their might to get away from the persecution. Their impetuous jumps become less and less frequent, and before reaching the sole, the goats fall one after another under the hunter's knife. If the pursuit is not carried out so vigorously, then the goats go further and few of them become prey, because, not seeing a strong danger, the goat goes more calmly, without straining, and with a cord, that is, one after another, jumping into the broken hole more strong forward.

In February 1885, with several hunters-soldiers, I managed to go on a hunt of this kind. The fact is that due to cattle plague, quarantine was declared and the battalion was without meat: it was necessary to get it, and two parties of hunters, five each, went in different directions.

I also went with one of the parties.

In the course of two and a half days we managed to find two small herds of goats, some of which managed to gallop up the already thawed steep slopes; they killed only 18 pieces, but they took two alive, without injuring or bruising at all.

One young guranchik * (with two processes on his horns) lived with me for a long time and became completely tame: he beat my dogs when they entered his premises, went to the nickname "Vaska" and did not try to run away. It is remarkable that he became tame almost on the same day that he was dragged to the winter hut; he began to go hand in hand among the hunters, to eat bread, oats and hay. At the same time, a familiar Gold gave me a roe deer as a pair. Although the animals lived with me for the same time, the roe deer was always almost completely wild and, regardless of friendship with the gouran and obedience to him, constantly strove to slip away into the mountains.

* (Guran is the local name for a male roe deer in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. Ed.)

Another party of hunters, sent at the same time for meat, killed almost as many goats and, it seems, caught one alive. Almost next to our party in the ridges hunted gold. He killed 46 goats in the shortest possible time without any rifle!

At the time of the spring ice crust and a little earlier, i.e., approximately in February and at the very beginning of March, the tiger, who strongly dislikes the ice crust and deep snow, does not find food along the still slightly bare ridges and therefore approaches living places where he does not have much labor manages to get a dog, then a pig, then a horse. However, at this time, horses, of course, are rarely found unlocked anywhere. It is remarkable that the tiger never cuts cattle here (although cattle are more accessible for this), at least here, on Daube-he, I know only one case of a two-year-old bull being injured by a tiger. And there were many cases of hosting tigers - and, moreover, the most impudent ones. I will not go through everything, but I will cite only the more recent and outstanding ones.

In the villages on the Ussuri, you can always hear a lot of stories about, for example, how a tiger climbed into a Cossack's hut. In order to hide from him, the Cossack climbed between the stove and the wall, from where the tiger began to extract it, and himself, being thicker than the Cossack, got stuck in this gap. Fortunately, the Cossack felt behind him a dull Lithuanian (scythe) and somehow sawed through it or pierced the throat of an impudent beast.

Another case. About one hundred and fifty Koreans are building a road from Vladivostok, digging side ditches on both sides of the road, all grouped. A tiger appears, calmly, walking, passes along a new road between the workers and hides with impunity in the forest, forcing the cowardly Koreans to build fires all night long and not sleep after work.

And then - the coachman is going back. Frost 25 °, and the coachman, drunk, wrapped himself in a dokha and dozes. Suddenly a terrible push - he flies out of the sleigh; he came to his senses from the fall, opened his eyes - the horses galloped away, and a tiger lies above him and looks at him, wagging his tail. The driver is stunned and afraid to move. He thinks that things are bad: the frost takes its toll, and the tiger is terrible. He begins to try to roll away from the unpleasant neighbor; he sees - things have gone smoothly, only the tiger follows him with his eyes and plays with his tail, but does not move from his place. The coachman, without seeing it himself, reached the cliff of the Amur bank, safely hooted from it onto the river and ran with it to the bench, before reaching which he saw his entangled horses and broken sledges.

I don’t remember, I think, at Krasny Yar (not far from the village of Nikolsky), three hunted - two Russians and one foreigner. The first two walk along the very crest of the ridge, so that they can clearly see the gold that drags the goat down. They look, and the tiger began to hide the foreigner: he crawls a few sazhens forward, hides, let him pass him - and again the same story. So several times. It is impossible to run from above to the rescue, since it is a sheer cliff, the cry is also not heard to warn ... they began to shoot and wave their arms and hats ... After the third or fourth maneuver, the tiger grabbed the foreigner who had not heard anything and, together with him and the goat, disappeared into bushes...

At the beginning of February 1884, the head of our telegraph station, Mr. K., was informed that a tiger had kidnapped a dog about eight versts from us in the Tsivais Fanza. Mr. K. with telegraph operator S. (not a hunter) went there to watch for the predator, since the latter almost always repeats his visit. In the fanza, a general commotion began among the Manzes, and towards evening a mass of weapons were trained to repulse the terrible guest; there were pikes, axes, axes, and almost agricultural implements. According to the stories of the manz, the tiger jumped onto the roof of the barn, from it into the yard, where he grabbed the dog and jumped up to the roof again with it. When the manzes rushed after him with a shout and uproar in a whole crowd, he went along the ridge of the barn, reaching the end of which, he dropped the dog into the yard, jumped down again after it, but then, under the onslaught of the emboldened manzes, he rushed into the corner shed and, not finding any way out, except for a small crack in the adobe wall, he broke the latter and left. Only the dog remained manzam on dumplings...

* (Manza - Manchu. Ed.)

K. checked the story on the trail in the snow of the roof and in the barn, and then remained to wait for a new visit.

It was getting dark. There were a lot of people in the big fanza with paper windows: they were smoking, making noise; hearths were burning, - in general it was light and noisy. Almost every paper window has a small hole poked in order to see what is being done in the yard. K. looked through one of them into the yard: it was almost dark, and the ridge of the opposite barn, through which the tiger had made its unsuccessful journey the previous night, was barely visible in the sky. In one place, on the ridge, in the form of an indefinite elevation, there was dark wind-blown straw, which K. noticed before dark ...

Quite a lot of time has passed. The Manzes, who were courting K., who had come to save them from an unpleasant guest, also often inquired through the window openings about the well-being in the yard...

Here one of them mysteriously approaches K. and whispers even more mysteriously: "Lamaza!" (tiger).

K. grabs the hard drive and bends down to the hole: the roof is barely visible, but, looking closely, you can make out not one, but already two piles ... it is impossible to guess which of them has reappeared ...

The word "Lamaza", heard and picked up by the rest of the Manzas, caused a commotion; remembering that their horses, although in the barn, are not locked up, they all head for the exit in a discordant crowd, with a hubbub, lanterns and their improvised weapons, dogs that have subdued since yesterday jump out with them. K. tries to bring everyone back with words. But that was not the case, the people were excited!... K. begins to push them back by force and with curses.

As soon as he succeeded in pushing the latter back and he began to close the door, one of the dogs darted frightened into the passage that had not yet closed. The other, in horror, pressed against the outer wall, then quickly rushed to the gate. Instantly, a massive tiger easily jumped to the same place, turned after it, the gates cracked, and the dog, who did not have time to escape, screeched deathly...

In the morning, the lattice gates were broken, and then - the trail of a tiger and the blood of a dragged dog.

The next day, in the evening, having learned about everything that had happened at K.'s, the four of us (including K.) set off on two sledges to Tsivais' fanza.

When we drove up to the fanza, it was completely dark; the sky is frosty, the snow is loose, the weather is mild. The road went by coastal willows, and if not for our conversations, then two sledges ran completely silently.

Here, through the willows, a fanza light flickered very close. Suddenly, in the fanza, screams, running around, lights flashed. “Is it too late?” someone in the sleigh says, “do they scare the tiger? Haven't the Honghuzi attacked!" *

* (Honghuz were Chinese robbers. Ed.)

I only saw people running. Only a cry like "trouble, trouble!" stood out especially sharply.

We stopped our horses and took up our rifles. Several people, very frightened, with flashlights flew towards us ... The fact is that a drive was put across the road for a tiger from two or three Berdan rifles. The light of the lantern clearly cast the shadow of a lace six vershoks from the leading horse! ... We did not know whether to thank or scold the manzes for their caution. Make the front horse at least half a step extra - it was a matter of chance who the bullets would hit.

Night in fanza and morning searches are not worth attention, so I will turn to the next case, which I was an eyewitness to.

In the middle of the same February, almost the same tiger that we rode in Tsivaiza got into the habit of hanging around here in Anuchin. His special sign was that one of the paws, I don’t remember which one, was slightly wounded in the very heel, and therefore a blood stain was clearly indicated on the trail, three kopecks in size. This tiger, apparently, was very hungry, as it ate the remains of burned, exhausted working bulls, which had nothing to eat during their lifetime and before the burning. Regardless of this, the tiger diligently and almost every night robbed them 30 sazhens from the outermost houses of the tracts, and then went to rest, traveling already along the river, three sazhens from the townsfolk, not peaceful, but military class! - Insolence!?

Convinced of the latter, I was the first to take up arms: in the place where the tiger was supposed to pass, i.e., where his tracks crossed, I made a booth of poles, covering it with a thick layer of hay, and spread it inside, so that there was to lie warmer, and that same night, armed with a rifle and a knife, with a messenger carrying a spear, he went to guard.

Moonlit night. About 70 steps from the skadka, in the middle of the channel, on the ice lies a clearly visible, burnt and uneaten bull's head. A messenger's spear sticks out at the right shoulder, and the barrel of the rifle, which has been tipped, sticks out of the booth and is lit further than the front sight by the almost full moon.

The first is the thought of the fragility of our refuge, then, an hour later, of the stupidity of our enterprise, and then of the warmth in our hut, and this most powerful argument drives us home at about 12 o'clock in the morning to a hot supper and a warm bed.

So three nights pass with only a small difference in time. The same story happened on the fourth. Staff Captain K. asks me on the morning of February 22 whether I will be sitting today.

I will, - I say, - but what?

Yes, I wanted to sit. Do me a favor.

In a word, I yielded the post for that night to him. And in the morning I went to check the tracks. I look - the tiger stood with its front paws in the booth itself, and the bull's head was dragged a hundred paces up the river and gnawed to the base of the horns. What kind of goblin? I run to K.

Well, what did you do?

Ah, brother, I'm sorry, yesterday, you know, guests... I'm quite ready... Yes, you see... Well... Let's go have a drink... What?

Yes, that's what: at night there was a tiger in the booth!

I told him the whole story and that the trail went right past his hut.

Well, thank God that I didn’t go, - K sighed with relief.

Do you really go on guard when you know that the tiger will not come? I laughed.

On the same day in the morning, after informing R. and taking with us two non-commissioned officers, we instantly found ourselves at the bull's head and then followed the tracks to a big sun about a mile from Anuchin.

One of the non-commissioned officers, Mikhey Ivanov, about whom I spoke earlier as an experienced tracker, was with us. He said that the tiger must be lying in this sunbath, and he was right. We had just climbed halfway up the mountain when we distinguished on the slightly thawed ground a clear imprint of the paws of a tiger, and at the very top, where the thaw ended and the snow began, there was an exit track of the animal we had just raised, since even small grains of agitated snow did not have time to thaw in fairly strong sun.

We quickly moved forward in the footsteps, walking one after the other.

The tiger walked cunningly - all the time in hazel and oak trees, and although both were slightly above the knee and it was visible far ahead, we never managed to see him in any of the gaps. From the place, as soon as he was awakened, he went with rather large jumps (arshin 7 - 8), he also resorted to them in open places that could not be bypassed, but then his gait turned into a small trot, which was no more than one and a half miles turned into a step.

The light crust could not withstand not only us, but also the tiger. I say "not only us" because the beast was at least twice as heavy as each of us. However, in one place, even when we were not climbing the sun, he jumped off the steep bank of the river onto the ice with all four paws in a heap and did not fall: the leading one of us had to go down from the bank to exactly the same place, but carefully, sitting and holding on to the bushes, and stand with your feet on the same point where the trace of the crowded paws of the animal was, and he failed.

The trail of the beast was heading to the northeast, just across the direction of the ridges, because of which it was necessary either to climb gentle sun-baked patches with thick hazel groves and small but hard snow, or to descend into the siver woodlands with deep, above the knee, snowdrifts.

The tiger apparently grew weaker every minute, for his step became small and uneven, and only in more open places did he strain his strength and run faster so as not to catch our eye. According to Mikhey Ivanov, he walked ahead no more than 80 fathoms. Micah spoke in this way, contemplating, I don’t know what signs left in the snow and on the bushes. His words, however, were soon confirmed, since ahead of us, about 60 sazhens, there was a small pass, completely bare of hazel, through which, judging by the direction of the track, the tiger should have crossed and which we had been looking at for a long time in anticipation of this moment.

For 50 sazhens from him, the trail twisted in different directions: we began carefully, with ready rifles, to unravel it. Suddenly, we look, lying down ... Eyes rushed to the pass ... A tiger rushed through it in two huge leaps, and only two dry, futile shots clicked after him and the snow rose up on the pass from someone's bullet. Despite the wasted charges, we quickly ran up the ridge, hoping to still see the animal and see if anyone had hit by chance, but there was no tiger, no traces of a hit.

We decided that the beast was apparently getting tired, and although there was no tea or bread, and we were lightly dressed, we still had to try to catch up with him again before dark.

And darkness was not far off: the short February day was coming to an end; the air grew cold and reddened, and the snow began to crack underfoot. Behind the pass the tiger walked for a long time in jumps of 5 and 6 arshins, and then again switched to a trot and immediately to a walk. Although we were very tired and sweating, we quickened our pace, the strongest walker M. Ivanov quickly paved the path for us in the wake of the beast.

Behind the second ridge, in the semi-mountain - a prone; we slowed down the step ... A few minutes later - again lying down. Both show that the animal is very tired: something like yellow sweat can be seen on the snow in its entire haul. I don't know if tigers sweat? Even shorter transition - more prone, even more sweat.

The animal, apparently, is angry, since several potholes from tail blows are noticeable on the beds. Every second we expect to see the beast. But it was already almost dark, and we ourselves stuck out our tongues, as it became quite difficult to walk in the snow, and the tiger did not fall through everywhere.

Here the trail turned along the ridge along a solid strip, but it does not hold us and it is almost impossible to shoot - it got so dark ...

I had to quit.

The next day there was still hope to try skiing. Now it was necessary to return home on their own and without rest, so as not to freeze. The moon has long overpowered the evening dawn and weakly illuminated our tired group, with dull patience breaking the deep snow that could withstand, then break.

The elbow is close, but you won’t bite! So this vile beast - he walked right up, they saw the tail, they saw that the hair was long and even shaking when jumping, but they could not get a tramp for four faithful rifles ...

As for meanness, intelligence or cunning, if I'm not tired, I'll tell you more about him.

Shortly after the first search, namely on March 1, Dr. I.'s orderly went for firewood to the first spruce fall along El Dago and, having arrived, said that he had seen the track of the same tiger with a bloody stain from its paw.

The doctor let us know, and himself, R., myself and two non-commissioned officers immediately went to try their luck. They soon found the trail, turned along it into the bushes, crossed the small groove of El-da-go, and almost immediately picked up a tiger in the thicket, as they walked noisily and did not expect him to lie so close to the road.

The tiger went up the banks of the El-da-go and its tributary. The left sunny bank had already thawed out, and its thick dried grass made it possible for the animal to walk freely and secretly, leaving only footprints in places on the unmelted snow. As far as the still moving grass, the beds and the fresh droppings showed, the tiger walked even closer to us than the first time; here the banks, overgrown with thick willow trees, walnut, willow, bird cherry and elm, contributed to this.

Apparently, the tiger was severely emaciated, because on the move he stopped and ate a half-pecked, rotten catfish, thrown out last autumn by water Or by fishermen. His droppings, unlike the usual, as happened to be seen on other hunts, were in small quantities and contained a lot of undigested grass. Did he eat grass from hunger? Suppose the time was such that it was difficult for him to get meat, since he is not a great master of walking in the snow, especially since the latter, having parted only on the steepest sunny days, still remained in large numbers in the seas, and a little evening (i.e., those hours when this predator hunts) - froze and cracked on the gently sloping sun - warning everyone about the approach of the tiger. Maybe the tiger ate grass in the form of a medicine - I don’t know, but I don’t think so, since the grass at that time was completely dry, overwintered under the snow and, probably, had already lost all its healing properties.

But then El-da-go turned, not exposing a single coast to the southeast sun; the willow became thicker and we had to walk through the snow above the knees. The snow was tight - it barely broke through and a tired leg was barely pulled out.

You know? - R. tells me, - there is a road parallel to the river; let the non-commissioned officers follow, and we will go forward along the rock along the road, and then turn along the wood path to the river and wait for the tiger.

No sooner said than done: we immediately got out onto the road. We walked about 300 steps with it ... the first path turns under the youngsters to the river ...

Let's turn off here, - says R.

No, - I say, - in another two hundred steps there will be another one, otherwise this one is too close under the rut.

We went to another, parallel to it, and, turning, reached the river, looked around - the trail had not yet passed.

We took a convenient place so as not to miss the tiger, and we wait.

The talnik along both banks, together with the river, was about a hundred paces wide; the place was not particularly wild, so it was difficult to miss.

They waited, they waited ... it seems that it would be time for a long time - the day was getting dark. Suddenly, along the same path that we came, I hear someone walking.

What you? - I ask one of the approached non-commissioned officers.

Yes, your honor, the tiger came down from the river; she walked along the road that is closer to the fanz, she must have stopped and looked after you when you walked along the road.

That's the thing! If we had gone along the path that was before and along which R. suggested going, we would probably have met him! I never thought that this beast was walking so close under the rut, but what has passed will not be.

We went, checked the words of the non-commissioned officer; It turned out that the tiger had indeed been standing for quite a long time at the very exit of the wood-burning path to the road, as a fair amount of blood had already oozing out at this place and the paws were drawn together. What he was thinking, standing there, I don’t know, maybe he was just looking at us, his opponents, since the place was completely open, and at that time we were walking away from him, thinking about how to intercept him on the river. There must have been little magnetism in the cat's eyes that neither of us had the urge to look back. Maybe because of this feature, cats hide animals so cleverly and closely.

Having stood by the road, the tiger crossed it and climbed into the rocky, very steep and thawed sun off the coast of El Dago. It was dark. We followed the tiger's course only to the cliff, and then went to spend the night in the nearest Korean fanz, leaving the pursuit Until the morning.

We slept somehow in a stuffy, flea-free Korean fanza with hot kans * and cold air, chock-full of naked Koreans, who, having taken off their only cotton jackets stuffed with all sorts of insects, only grunt with pleasure, roasting their naked bodies on all sides on hot kans. And our unaccustomed brother lies and thinks: "Oh, Lord, soon there would be light! Oh, Lord, it would be better if he slept in the cold somewhere in the forest, in a swamp - everything is better." But still, before the light, either sleep or some kind of oblivion will overcome - the Koreans have stopped spinning, the Kans have cooled down, and the naked bodies are already covered with something, leaving open only cuffs braided on their heads and about 20 pairs of snub-nosed nostrils emitting a heavy , uneven snoring and glanders, striving under the smoky vaults of smoked fanza.

* (In the dwellings of the Manchus and Koreans, the pipe from the stove passes under low benches - kans, so they are always warm.)

It dawned a little, and we were already on the trail of the sun, apparently, everyone was happy that they got out into the fresh air, although it was getting pretty good.

Non-commissioned officer Trofimov was already climbing the cliff to make out the trail, and a few minutes later, stopping at a small step, he waved his hands at us. We scratched and we to him.

Here, God forgive me, the damned one is lucky! If you please, take a look, - says T. in an undertone, pointing to the ground with his hand, when we, panting, climbed out onto the ledge.

Near the large stone, as can be seen from the heavily flattened and settled grass, there was a tiger's nightly roost. A little lower, about three sazhens along a steep rocky-sandy descent, you can see the trail of a roe deer rolling on its back - it was a tiger that rode on it, and all along this stretch there are traces of blood and large tufts of wool; next to it are two tracks of roe deer quickly rushing down.

Then the crushed roe deer was dragged up not far from the bed and eaten to the ground, even with the offal and with everything contained in it, only one ear with a piece of skin, a hoof with a small piece of a leg and a little undigested grass from the stomach remained! And then another stool from a well-fed predator.

Really lucky this rogue! That's how I ate from hunger - now I can't catch up for anything.

We smoked, made out the trail: he went down obliquely, then went out onto the road and straight along the road up the valley. We decided to follow it some more, hoping to catch the tiger sleeping somewhere, but it was all in vain: after eating heavily, the animal walked in a completely different way, and we had already brewed tea for refreshment twice, to no avail climbed God knows what peaks. The only interesting thing this time was that, firstly, the tiger impudently walked past the Manz fanza itself, although he probably walked even when it was light (wouldn’t he want to hang another dog for a snack?), and secondly, he he opened his lair to us, or another fellow, not far from the fanza.

It was a stinking place in the middle of nowhere and more often, where there were many gnawed, mostly dog ​​bones; from here, in times of famine, the predator made raids on fanzas, and he, probably, at that time fell under the shot of a wary antediluvian Chinese rifle.

According to eyewitnesses, the Manzes had a uniform revelry when one night they heard a shot and a roar, and at dawn they solemnly picked up a large beast. Boiled, fried and steamed meat in all forms; dumplings, soup and roasts were cooked. Since tiger meat is eaten for courage, then, probably because of this and on the occasion of the celebration, the guests who arrived - the neighbors of the manza - helped to devour a whole tiger almost in one day. The skin was stuffed with straw and solemnly brought to sell to our tract, where they sold it for 50 rubles to the head of the telegraph station. The stuffed effigy was of impressive size (eighteen quarters) and, placed on a tall stove, was almost equal to it.

It seems that Nemesis also touched our tiger (with a bloody paw), since about the same time a soldier who went to the cedar forest, located near the places where our tiger kept, stumbled upon the corpse of the beast, lightly covered with snow; the size of the footprint was the same, but on the paws, as I did not look, I did not find signs of injury. The skin was very beautiful, but the beast, apparently, was hungry. It is not known for what reason he died, since he was sent ungutted to Vladivostok for sale.

In the same month, the corporal of my company, a good hunter Leontyev, was sent to the Lazarev telegraph station to guard the battalion cargo located there. I don't remember the date, but a tiger came at night and dragged the dog away. That morning, Leontiev, with another soldier - not a hunter, and with a small dog of company education, who rather willingly galloped along any trail, set off after him. Not far he had to pass through small hazels when a tiger rose a hundred paces ahead. Leontiev immediately kissed and hit him (from the Berdanka) on the shoulder blades. The tiger jumped high on all four paws and, roaring terribly, ran away, skirting a small hillock. Leontiev turned round as he loaded, and his companion and the little dog, which until then had run briskly along the trail, both stood as if petrified.

What are you, Kremnev? - he shouted to his comrade, and he himself rushed to cut across the tiger.

Kremnev, like a lunatic, unconsciously and quietly began to lean forward.

Meanwhile, Leontiev, running out onto a hill, saw a walking beast and, once again quite close hitting him in the back, broke his sacrum.

The tiger growled angrily, strangled, and climbed, dragging his backside, straight at Leontiev, fixing his yellow evil eyes on the dark, tense eyes of the hunter, who had already loaded his rifle and slowly took aim ... At six paces, the beast trembled violently with his whole body and, as he was, he froze , lying down on the ground, with a small hole in the forehead from a conical bullet.

Leontiev felt relieved, and only now his hands were shaking violently.

Kremnev and the little dog have barely moved since the beginning of the drama. The happy winner did not have the spirit to reproach the timid one. The funny thing is that the little dog had to be pushed aside in order to get out of his stupor, and while we were walking through the bushes to the village, he was so nervous that, accidentally hitting a bush or a blade of grass with his tail, he jumped back with a squeal and quickly turned his muzzle to the object that hit her.

According to Leontiev's story, the tiger, having dragged away the dog, ate no more than half and moved away from it no further than ten steps, which was visible in the snow.

There is a general belief, sometimes supported by facts, that dog meat has a lulling effect on the tiger. The fact is that this fierce predator, freely eating a quarter of a horse, a whole goat, half a deer and more *, sometimes with danger to his own life, after getting a dog, savor it for a terribly long time.

In 1886, in early spring, I happened to kill a red deer. I was only the two of us with the shooter Paletsky, and we both immediately set off for the horse to take away the deer. Arriving home, I sent a horse with Paletsky and another non-commissioned officer. It turned out that someone had dragged the red deer, and both shooters at first thought it was a bear, since from the mountain, for at least half a verst, the beast was dragging the red deer by drag, crushing all the bushes around. Farther on, where the descent became delayed, the trace of the portage disappeared, but there were no bones. The ground was solid, and the hunters could barely distinguish the trail of the beast, which had gone further and was apparently dragging the wapiti on itself. But here, on one low and damp place, deep tiger tracks were clearly imprinted, and further, near the key, the remains of an almost eaten beast.

On September 14, 1885, we were informed that, about two versts from us, near the new settlers of the village of Gordeevka, in one night the tigers knocked down three horses and, having sucked out the blood, had not yet begun to eat. It was not long to assemble, especially under such good conditions as September and a two-verst distance. They decided to watch in earnest, according to all the rules, since the nights were warm, and where the bitten horses lay, there were trees.

Doctor I., lieutenant Sh. and I set off.

In view of the seriousness of the undertaking, I did not even take a smoke with me, but only, just in case, grabbed a not particularly thick long rope.

We took three Ukrainian guides from the village, who were supposed to show us where the horses were. Two of the escorts were with shot-loaded single-barreled shotguns, which they took, and with the greatest care, fearing, probably, more of their single-barreled shotguns than of the beast, they placed them conveniently behind their backs.

According to a lot cast, the doctor had to sit by a separately lying horse, closer to the road, me and III. got a place with two other horses, which lay fathoms 5 - 7 from one another.

The sun was already setting when we sat I. on his tree and set off to look for our horses ourselves.

In the high and thick sagebrush we succeeded only when it began to get dark. Having hastily selected the trees, we already wanted to climb them, when the crests declared that they were afraid to go back alone. It cost a lot of words and time to persuade them that it was still light, that we, having gone upstairs, would protect their journey, that if we went with them, we would miss time, etc., while they decided to leave, deliberately making noise and talking for more security.

But then everything calmed down, the gray sky moved over us and became very dark. Only one of the horses - white - stood out as a weak spot on the blackened earth ... Although we settled on the woods, six sazhens from one another, we could no longer distinguish each other. It was terribly uncomfortable to sit because of the branches growing upwards at an acute angle to the trunk, it was also inconvenient to aim or change front. I don’t remember how long we sat or, rather, we stood at our posts, but in the darkness of the night a slight rustling was heard along the dry sagebrush - as if someone was carefully crawling around the place we had occupied. Maybe some kind of animal, or maybe the tiger was doing reconnaissance of its prey.

Since there was absolutely nothing to be seen, I stared at the white spot that marked the horse, expecting to see on it the dark shadow of the animal that had appeared. From prolonged exertion, it seemed that the spot was swaying and changing shape, but one had only to close one's eyes for a second and look at once, and everything remained as before...

Again, everything is quiet - even dreary.

Sh. must have overcome the same feeling - he began to toss and turn on his tree, at first quietly, and then even with a crackling of branches. I am silent. Not far away, on the bank of a river with a din, frightened by something, a large flock of crows broke off ...

What are they afraid of at night? Sh speaks in an undertone.

“Why are you spinning around there?” I whisper even quieter.

Yes, I’m attaching a cloak to the cloak! ...

Ah, I think, damn it! He is dexterous there with a cloak, but I’m in one short coat, it even hurts to stand up! ... - And it already seemed to me that Sh. gently put one end of the cloak under him, and made something like tents. Well, okay, I think, let him sleep; But I will shoot! And as soon as he calmed himself with this thought, he shuddered when he saw a flash of light in the darkness ... I don’t know what I thought about the light at that moment, but in any case, it’s not that Lieutenant Sh. is lighting a cigar! I could sit without smoking until the morning, but here - a cloak and a cigar?! I felt sick... I forgot all caution.

Have you smoked, A.I.?

Yes. Yes, I'm going up...

May I ask you for a cigarette? I didn’t take it with me, and now, probably, we won’t wait for anything.

They agreed to get down and leave this time. But it was dark and thick below.

What are you getting off?

Will you be on the ground soon?

Now! - again mutual swindle and laughter after the understood deceit.

Finally, they began to descend in earnest, strictly observing the distance from the ground, and, it seems, I, as a result of

that strongly wanted to smoke, jumped off first.

Then came the question of how we would find a doctor. We knew the direction approximately, although in the dark, but it was impossible to find it exactly, especially since we even wandered during the day. It was possible either to bypass the doctor completely, or to run into him unexpectedly and get a charge instead of a beast. Shouting all the time is also embarrassing - as if we are afraid.

We went like this, at random, having made rifles, and after passing, in our opinion, about half, they shot and shouted, and the doctor immediately responded, although significantly aside from the direction we had taken.

Sh. also saw nothing, but only sacrificed a knife and a ring when he climbed a tree, and, despite the search, it was impossible to find both things in the dark. Wishing to get shorter to the sleeping village (in which, probably, sensing the proximity of tigers, not a single dog barked), we got lost for a long time before we got onto the road - it was so difficult to navigate in the dark.

The next day I did not have time, and Sh. went to watch with his orderly. He said that the tigers came when it was still quite light, but all the misfortune came from the fact that he and the messenger sat down on one of the most convenient of the uncomfortable trees; the orderly placed himself higher, facing the other way, and the first one saw small tigers approaching; in order to warn his master, without frightening the tigers, he began to push him in the head with his foot, shod in a boot with a horseshoe ... Sh. became furious: he knew that something important had happened, and did not know what to choose - whether to carefully turn around or beat his orderly for impudence, but the average came out - he turned around carelessly and frightened the approaching two tigers, which he still managed to see. Sh. says that they were small, probably young animals. According to the trail, which we checked, and by the number of fallen horses, it could be concluded that a whole family was wandering around - two large and two small. And "this family got away with impunity!

Around Shrovetide in 1889 there were especially many tigers, and they roamed mostly near the dwellings. There was almost not a single day that something new was not heard about their tricks.

These pleasant neighbors also appeared in our tract and brought their attacks to impudence. In the very center of the tract, inhabited almost exclusively by military men, of whom almost everyone has rifles or shotguns, one night a tiger crushed a pig at Staff Captain B. urban, close to the barracks with perpetual orderlies and posts with perpetual sentries, moving patrols and other service dispersals.

And about the outskirts, that is, about the houses located along the banks of the river, there is nothing to say: at Dr. I. (he has three rifles, two double-barreled shotguns), the tiger stole a setter; there he skinned the side of a two-year-old bull. He dragged a pointer from your obedient servant (the same number of weapons) and so frightened the horses that from that moment they began to rush, especially from lying objects - logs, tufts of hay, and the like.

Near my house, 20 sazhens away, there is a night post, where orderlies always keep the fire going. That night, when the abduction took place, as if on purpose, it was snowing wet and the orderly came across damp firewood, with which he fussed until dawn, hearing that someone was walking nearby, and sensing danger. By order of the authorities, the sentry at this post was armed with a rifle.

The officer in charge of the hunting team, with several hunters, pursued the tiger that had dragged the dog from the doctor, and quite unexpectedly met the animal right there across the river on a very high mountain ledge. The tiger ate the dog! Owing to surprise, no one prepared to fire; once they shot almost at a glance, then they pursued and ... nothing more.

Despite all the activities of the hunting team, the tigers placed the tract in a state of siege; it got a little dark, they were afraid to walk the streets; on a visit, especially to the outskirts, they almost did not go alone, but rather in whole crowds, or else, despite the close distance, they harnessed the horses; some carried knives, revolvers; some took messengers; some were escorted with a rifle, and perhaps some of the braver ones, on the journey home, were overcome by such a frantic trot or amble that only darkness hid this secret. It has already become close to the cartoon that was placed in our newspaper in 1885, at a time when tigers were also staggering, although not to the same extent. Captain K. was depicted there, going to the authorities with an evening report: in front of him was a messenger with a lantern, the other with a bell; K. himself with a Winchester and a checker, and behind them there is still a patrol with rifles ...

One of the tigers chose an island densely overgrown with willows on Daube-he, in the closest distance from the telegraph buildings, as his residence. From here he made his raids and, despite the fact that he was guarded, that a trap was set for him, he dragged about nine pigs, two dogs, cut off the side of a big bull so that he soon disappeared, and in the most impudent manner, despite the fact that that he was pursued and laid on almost daily, returned to the same island, as if back home.

Let us suppose that our salaries were made not so much clumsily as carelessly and greedily: they hoped to get a beast with four or five people, while there was no shortage of people. Every one of us has set his sights on getting the skin with his own hands. Some of those who, for example, had a pig stolen by a tiger, considered it theirs and almost forbade shooting it, although they did not determine whether it would be accepted or branded.

Almost every time the tiger was scared off from the island; he crossed a river with densely overgrown banks on the ice, looked out for the places where the sparsely spaced numbers stood, and, having made his way between them across the clearing in some barely noticeable hollow, he safely reached the mountains.

Once I made a similar salary with the hunters from the company: two followed the tracks of the beast, and two guarded on the best manholes. The raised animal passed very close to me, but I did not see it.

We went to chase him through the mountains, followed him until the very evening, and again I was only convinced that the tiger was an excellent tactician; retreating, he occupies the tops of the mountains (the beds are visible in the snow), from where he calmly follows your movements, and while you climb one peak, he secretly, slowly, takes the next one, etc. But, despite the fact that in in other places, due to light forests and the convenient slope of the mountain in our direction, we should have seen it, we never managed to do this, this large predator is so deftly able to apply itself to every tree, bush, stump and deadwood. If we drank tea, he was located not far away and calmly waited for us to finish this operation. This was evident from the heavily succumbed vale, reaching which, we were always surprised how we did not notice the animal from the place where we brewed tea, although the four of us looked at each bush in detail from there, and this is only at a distance of some 200-400 steps And still on white snow?! In some places, the tiger, not wanting to pass open clearings, made loops, approached us even closer and, apparently, tried to guess our intentions. By the end of the day, he was very tired of our annoying pursuit: he often began to lie down and beat his tail in the snow ... Only the setting sun calmed him and us.

Every step of the tiger is thought out. He does not go far from his pursuers in order to know their intention, the direction they have taken, and in general to have them before his eyes.

It seems to me that if the mountains were convenient everywhere, then it would not be particularly difficult to catch up or drive a tiger on habitual horses, since in winter the local forests are visible far through, and there are no other shelters in the mountains, such as thick reeds or something like that. available; on top of the hazelnuts, the oak bush should be clearly visible from the horse.

In the same year, 1889, and also about Maslenitsa, 15 versts from us, on the high road to the village of Nikolskoye, a tiger attacked a wagon train, but, not calculating the jump or because a frightened horse jerked, fell on an empty sleigh and angrily began to gnaw and tear them the bags that were on them, performing this operation at full gallop of a frightened horse. In the same place, it seems, the same tiger, in broad daylight, in front of the people, dragged an unharnessed bull from a stopped convoy. Already after a number of such tricks, he came under the bullet of the reserve shooter Knyazev. He, walking along the road, saw a tiger approaching him, shot and hit him in the paw near the shoulder; the tiger began to run in circles, probably due to the fact that one of the paws did not work, and, finally, lay down behind a fallen tree. Knyazev climbed a tree and from there finished off the beast.

Altogether, about Shrovetide in 1889, not far from our tract, six tigers were killed, in most cases with alert guns; in the tract itself, not a single one was killed, despite the relatively large number of efficient hunters.

Two or three versts from us, in the village of Gordeevka, a tiger dragged off a respectable piglet. The Gordeevsky Khokhols had already been set up in advance by the visits of this vagabond, and as soon as the squeal of the piglet was heard, the hostess flew out of the hut in what she was and chased the tiger with a cry of “throw! throw!” ... The tiger really threw the pig, but already eaten.

The whole mass of stories about this terrible predator, of course, is impossible to write, but I will give two more interesting cases.

There was a famous hunter Perevalov in this region. After unsuccessful shots, the tiger forced him and his comrade to climb trees and drop their weapons, and he calmly lay down under one of the trees.

After sitting for some time, the hunters began to figure out how to get out of their stupid situation. Near one of the trees lay a gun thrown close by, and Perevalov decided to fish it out. Gathering and tearing a rather long rope from his hunting preparations and suits, he tied a knot in the form of a hook to the end of it and started fishing, but the tiger noticed this immediately and almost deprived Perevalov of the lace he had obtained with difficulty. We sat a little longer and thought of trying our luck - diverting the attention of the tiger by throwing bullets at it. This had an effect on the tiger, it became distracting and disturbing, and even forced him to change his place. When the bullets were almost running out, they managed to fish out a rifle, and the last bullet from it was the most successful of all.

Many years ago, in Khabarovsk, a tiger pulled off a sentry in a sheepskin coat from a post near the powder magazine, but while he was carrying him, the sentry imperceptibly freed himself from his sleeves and fell to the ground, and the tiger carried away one sheepskin coat. After this incident, by order of the authorities, a lattice door was made in the niche of the powder magazine, behind which the gatekeeper locked the sentry at night and he could protect the post from behind the bars.

We don't have special tiger hunters; real "tigers" are those to whom the tiger gave the opportunity to try the strength of their teeth and paws. In this regard, the peasant Khudyakov, who lives at the post of Razdolny (30 versts from the village of Nikolsky), became especially famous, who, returning from hunting, accidentally stumbled upon a whole family of tigers and killed three! But one, whom he considered to be probably killed, woke up at the time when the peasant was ripping off his brother, and prescribed Khudyakov eternal memory on his leg and arm. Khudyakov fired from a Winchester; he himself is still alive, healthy and still a good hunter.

Most of our hunters are convinced that the local tiger does not climb trees; this, however, is confirmed by the fact that they flee from him in the trees, guard from the trees, and in general in numerous stories you will not hear that a tiger was caught on a tree or that he climbed a tree. Meanwhile, all famous naturalists, describing the Bengal and royal tigers - our brothers, do not deprive them of this ability. Only from one gold acquaintance, a good industrialist, I heard that the local tiger climbs trees well and that he saw it twice himself. He told me that the local black bear also climbs trees, and the brown one - only in his youth. Perhaps the local tree species is the cause of this? The size of the trees is far behind the tropical ones, the bark and branches are thinner, which, apparently, does not allow large predators to hold on to them with their claws or paws.