OF BEAST FIGHTS
All nature fights. We are nowadays familiar with false phrases such as "unnatural strife" and the like, used in denunciation of one of the central instincts of life, but at heart we acknowledge that war is always natural to man and beast. The next best thing to fighting is to see others fight, says the experience of the world, and India has travelled a well-worn track in its enjoyment of fighting as a spectacle. English readers are already familiar with accounts of the gladiatorial displays and beast fights of the Emperor Akbar and of the Nawab Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib. There are many allusions in popular sayings and legends, and in the chronicles of native states, to wager fights between man and man, man and beast, and beast and beast, which show how popular and widespread the practice was. In a comparison between the arenas of old Rome and those of India the latter would come poorly off by reason of the inferiority of Orientals in the faculty of organisation, but in spite of details left to chance and an imperfect mise en scène, the Indian shows had much in common with the Roman displays, and the spirit and intention were the same. Wild animals are easily obtained here, and both Princes and people are greedy of sensations, so that it is natural that an arena for beast fights should become a regular appanage of a princely court. Lut'f'ullah in his interesting autobiography describes the populace of Baroda regularly spending its large leisure in the well-known animal yard there, and its wondering interest in the rhinoceros, familiarly known as the "janwar," the beast par excellence. These arenas are still haunted by the people, and will probably change gradually into Zoological gardens, but there can be no doubt that the beast fight is popular to-day. You may call it brutal if you please, and organise a brand new society for its suppression, but it should be remembered that only yesterday the populations of whole towns (like Birmingham) swarmed to the British bull-ring, and that nature herself set the fashion.
There are indeed beast fights, promoted by men, which are simply developments of the beneficent principle described by modern science as the survival of the fittest. Of these are the spring-time buffalo bull fights treated as solemnities by Indian herdsmen. Once diversions of the pastoral prime, these conflicts are still annually brought off, even in Bombay, within sight of railways and telegraph posts. The men say--and doubtless with truth--that they are useful in showing decisively which animal is best fitted to be a sire. Such fights are not always brought about by the herdsmen. One of the most impressive pictures of defeat I ever saw was one evening on a lonely road in the Western Ghauts, when a buffalo bull suddenly appeared against the sunset in labouring flight, rolling as he staggered along like a rudderless ship, his mouth and nostrils foaming, a horn broken, and his black flanks stained with blood. A long way behind him came the conqueror, bearing marks of the fight, but lumbering easily forward, half minded to stop; content that his foe was beaten and flying.
Sportsmen in pursuit of the black-buck antelope have occasionally seen a pair of these beautiful creatures so fiercely engaged in fighting as to take no notice of the intruder with a gun, and the skulls of deer with horns firmly interlocked have often been found as proofs of a fatal struggle.