d house boat to hunt
the "blue tiger" at Futsing. In fact, we had all the luxury of a private
yacht, for our boat contained a large central cabin with a table and chairs
and two staterooms and was manned by a captain and crew of six men--all for
$1.50 per day!

In the evening we talked of the blue tiger for a long time before we spread
our beds on the roof of the boat and went to sleep under the stars. We left
the boat shortly after daylight at Daing-nei for the six-mile walk to
Lung-tao. To my great surprise the coolies were considerably distressed at
the lightness of our loads. In this region they are paid by weight and some
of the bearers carry almost incredible burdens. As an example, one of our
men came into camp swinging a 125-pound trunk on each end of his pole,
laughing and chatting as gayly as though he had not been carrying 250
pounds for six miles under a broiling sun.

Mr. Caldwell's Chinese hunter, Da-Da, lived at Lung-tao and we found his
house to be one of several built on the outskirts of a beautiful grove of
gum and banyan trees. Although it was exceptionally clean for a Chinese
dwelling, we pitched our tents a short distance away. At first we were
somewhat doubtful about sleeping outside, but after one night indoors we
decided that any risk was preferable to spending another hour in the
stifling heat of the house.

It was probable that a tiger would be so suspicious of the white tents that
it would not attack us, but nevertheless during the first nights we were
rather wakeful and more than once at some strange night sound seized our
rifles and flashed the electric lamp into the darkness.

Tigers often come into this village. Only a few hundred yards from our camp
site, in 1911, a tiger had rushed into the house of one of the peasants and
attempted to steal a child that had fallen asleep at its play under the
family table. All was quiet in the house when suddenly the animal dashed
through the open door. The Chinese declare that the gods protected the
infant, for the beast missed his prey and seizing the leg of the table
against which the baby's head was resting, bolted through the door dragging
the table into the courtyard.

This was the work of the famous "blue tiger" which we had come to hunt and
which had on two occasions been seen by Mr. Caldwell. The first time he
heard of this strange beast was in the spring of 1910. The animal was
reported as having been seen at various places within an area