3-012-012 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A stampede of jackals through the environs of Calcutta, 1864. 'A walk through Calcutta about midnight reveals to the European stranger many curious sights and sounds...[Outside the] ordinary dwellings and shops...are the owners sleeping on charpoys (very primitive bedsteads) in the open fronts, answering for the verandah of the houses...On every side are hundreds of tall cocoanut palms...As he turns the corner of the street a rushing sound directs his attention to a moving mass of living creatures...a piercing shriek, like that of some wretch in the direst extremity of terror, rises upon his ear; this is followed by another and another, until the whole pack is in full chorus. These are the jackals, the scavengers of Calcutta...the jackal is a great coward, and, unless he can attack with every advantage on his side, he will slink away from a grown person, or even a boy with a stick in his hand...Very young children, however, have been carried off and devoured by the pack; and there have been instances of a rabid jackal running amuck through the crowded bazaars in broad daylight and committing fearful havoc amongst the naked legs of the natives: for their bite, when the animal is in this state, produces the worst form of hydrophobia'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.