Огнеопасно: Тигры

to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal

Dear Sir,

'Tis my solemn duty to inform you of a certain aspect of the local wildlife, which I am afraid has been overlooked by British soldiers and hunters alike, and yet considering it might save lives - and those are not human lives only.

In the course of my duty I've run into many a hunter who's told me (more often than not with eyes I'd call, for want of a better word, not perfectly sane) of a peculiar phenomenon he's witnessed in the jungle near Bangladesh. After a long journey such a hunter might reach a clearing in the jungle - which wouldn't happen to be man-made; in fact, it would look rather like the remains of a forest fire, black and damp and terrible.

Many have sought to solve such an apparent puzzle, but I'm writing this particularly to inform you that there is, in fact, none.

Those clearing are indeed the result of a fire, but the source of that fire is a specific species of tiger indigenous to the place; once it has caught fire (which almost always is an accident) it becomes extremely difficult to put out.

And here I must warn you that british soldiers are adopting a worrying and inhumane custom of setting those tigers on fire just for the fun of it. I should protest must strongly agains such violence, for otherwise there would quite soon be none left.

I urge you to stop them, and would also recommend prohibiting any matches in and around Bangladesh.

A concerned Bengalese

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P.S. The vision of such a tiger might just have inspired W.Blake to write his poem