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he macabre death of young Munro, son of the famous General,
Sir Hector Munro, was described
in the Marriages, Births and Deaths section of 'The Scots
Magazine' of July 1793. This gruesome tale from an exotic
land captured the imagination of the British public, and
the image appeared in engravings such as ' The Attack of
Mr Munro by a TYGER in the Island of Saugur'; in Staffordshire
pottery figurines and on Pontypool ware trays (oil on tin).
By 1807, an illustrated account had been published as far
away as Philadelphia. "The human mind cannot form an idea
of the scene. It turned my very soul within me �.The beast
was about four and a half feet high and nine long. His head
appeared as large as an ox's, his eyes darting fire, and
his roar when he first seized his prey will never be out
of my recollection" wrote an eye witness from the ship 'Shaw
Ardaseer' off Saugur Island.
Over one hundred years after the tragic death of Munro, a descendant, H.H. Munro ('Saki') resurrected the image in his Chronicles of Clovis, published in 1911. The story of 'Sredni Vashtar' describes how Conradin's hated guardian is devoured in the garden shed by the boy's polecat- ferret, Sredni Vashtar 'in the gloom stood a large hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession�And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion��. �.. every evening in the dusk of the tools-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went up: 'Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar'�� �..Sredni Vashtar went forth�.And presently�out through the doorway came a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a blink at the waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat �.'Tea is ready,' said the sour-faced maid; 'where is the mistress?' 'She went down to the shed some time ago,' said Conraddin, ��and proceeded to toast himself a piece of bread.' Munro was born in Burma in 1870 but brought up in North Devon, where perhaps he would have seen some of the Devonshire mummers plays, last played at Sidmouth in 1905. In a happy intermingling of fact and fiction, reminiscent of the great Seringapatam melodramas staged seventy years earlier, the cast of the Sidmouth Mummers' play included 'King Tippo'; King James; the Prince of Orange; the Duke of Wellington; Father Christmas and a Merman. King Tippo died two heroic deaths and reappeared at the close to collect money from the audience. |
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