Man-Eaters of Kumaon (Oxford India Paperbacks)

249 Pages·1993·13.18 MB·English

by  Jim Corbett

THE AUTHOR
MA-N-EAT'EftS
KUMAON
OF
By
CORBETT
JIM
With an Introduction by
SIR MAURICE HALLETT
!OR OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, 1939-45
and a Prefatp by
LORD LINLITHtfbW
VICEROY OF INDIA, 1936-43
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.j
GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI KUALALUMPUR
CAPETOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACCRA
Jim Corbett 1944
First published 1944
FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE CHAMPAK LIBRARY 1947,
Reprinted 1949, 1952,
PRINTED IN INDIA BY V. D. LIMAYE AT THE INDIA PRINTING WORKS,
FORT, BOMBAY, AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN BROWN,
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD HOUSE, APOLLO BUNDER, BOMBAY 1
INTRODUCTION
npHESE jungle storiesby Jim Corbettmerit as muchpopularity
JL and as wide a circulation as Rudyard Kipling's Jungle
Books. Kipling's Jungle Books were fiction, based on great
knowledge of jungle life; Corbett's stories are fact, and fact is
often stranger than fiction. These stories should prove of
entrancing interest to all boys and girls who like exciting yarns;
they should be of equal interest to all who take any interest in
the wild life of the jungle; they should prove of great value to
any genuine sportsman who wishes to earn by his own efforts
the credit of shooting a tiger; they will be of interest even to the
so-called sportsman who feels some pride in killing a tiger when
all that he has done is to fire straight from a safe position on a
machan or on the back of a staunch elephant, when all the hard
work involved in beating up a tiger to his death has been done
by others.
Corbett's description of his campaign against the man-eaters
of the Kumaon Hills shows the qualities that a successful shikari
needs, physical strength, infinite patience, great power of
observation and power not only to notice small signs but also to
draw the right inference from those signs. To these must be
added great courage. I will not make quotations from the book
to prove this statement. Read the book for1yourself; you will
soon see the truth of it; these qualities were exhibited by Corbett
himself, by his friends who helped him in some of these cam-
paigns, by the villagers whom he went to protect, and by his
big-hearted and faithful companion Robin.
Jim Corbett's name is already a household word in Kumaon;
I hope that as a result of this bodk it will get still wider fame.
M. G. HALLETT

FOREWORD
HP
HESE stories are the true account of Major Corbett's
JL experiences with man-eating tigers in the jungles-'of the
United Provinces. I am most glad to commend them to all
who enjoy a tale well told of action and adventure.
The sportsman will find much to entertain and inform him
in Major Corbett's book. If every beginner would study it before
tackling his first tiger, fewerpersons would be killed or seriously
injured when hunting these creatures. For something more is
required than courage and good marksmanship for the success-
ful pursuit of dangerous game. Forethought, preparation, and
persistence are indispensable to success.
Over wide areas of the United Provinces the authors name
is familiar to the village folk as that of the man who has brought
them relief from the great fear inspired by a cruel and malignant
presence in their midst. Many a District Officer, faced with the
utter disorganization of rural life that attends the presence of a
man-eating tiger or panther, has turned to Jim Corbett for help
never, I believe, in vain. Indeed the destruction of these
abnormal and dangerous animals is a service of great value both
to the afflicted population and to Government.
The reader will find in these stories many proofs of the
author's love of nature. Having spent in. Major Corbett's
company some part of such holidays as I have contrived to
take during my time in India, I can with confidence write of him
that no man with whom I have hunted in any continent better
understands the signs of the jungle. Very often he has told me
of the intense happiness he has derived from his observations of
wild life. I make no doubt that it isin large part the recollection
of all that his own eyes have brought him that moves him now
to dedicate this first edition of his book to the aid of soldiers
blinded in war, and to arrange that all profits from its sale shall
be devoted to the funds of St Dunstan's, the famous institution
viii Man-eaters of Kumaon
in which men who have given their sight for their country and
for the great cause of human freedom may learn, despite their
affliction, to lead useful and happy lives; and whose beneficent
ministrations are extended now to the armed forces in India.
House LINLITHGOW
Viceroy's
New Delhi
CONTENTS
AUTHOR'S NOTE x
THE CHAMPAWAT MAN-EATER
i
ROBIN
29
THE CHOWGARH TIGERS - - - - 41
THE BACHELOR OF POWALGARH - - - 95
THE MOHAN MAN-EATER
- - - - 109
THE FISH OF MY DREAMS - - - - 139
THE KANDA MAN-EATER - - - - 145
THE PIPAL PANI TIGER - - - - 159
THE THAK MAN-EATER
- - - - 168
JUST TIGERS 216
ILLUSTRATIONS
Photographs by the author unless otherwise stated
THE AUTHOR
- - - - Frontispiece
'AN AREA OF 1,500 SQUARE MILES 9F
MOUNTAIN AND VALE ' - - Facing page 32
ROBIN
33
ROBIN BRINGING HOME THE BACHELOR
- 33
THE BACHELOR OF POWALGARH
64
' IT WAS THE DUTY OF WOMEN 65
A VILLAGE SHRINE
65
' WHERE THE WATER RESTS' - - - 160
THE STURDY, HAPPY AND UNSPOILT PEOPLE
OF OUR HILLS 161
EXAMPLES OF CINE-PHOTOGRAPHY - - 176-7
SKETCH MAP OF KUMAON
- - End-paper (back)
AUTHOR'S NOTE
As many of the stories in this book are about man-eating
tigers, it is perhaps desirable to explain why these animals
develop man-eating tendencies.
A
man-eating tiger is a tiger that has been compelled, through
stress of circumstances beyond its control, to adopt a diet alien
to it. The stress of circumstances is, in nine cases out of ten,
wounds, and in the tenth case old age. The wound that has
caused a particular tiger to take to man-eating might be the
result of a carelessly fired shot and failure to follow up and
recover the wounded animal, or be the result of the tiger having
lost his temper when killing a porcupine. Human beings are
not the natural prey of tigers, and it is only when tigers have
been incapacitated through wounds or old age that, in order to
five, they are compelled to take to a diet of human flesh.
A tiger when killing its natural prey, which it does either
by stalking or lying in wait for it, depends for the success of its
attack on its speed and, to a lesser extent, on the condition of its
teeth and claws. When, therefore, a tiger is suffering from one
or more painful wounds, or when its teeth are missing or defec-
tive and its claw worn down, and it is unable to catch the ani-
malsit hasbeen accustomed to eating, it is driven by necessity to
killing human beings. The change-over from animal to human
flesh is, I believe, in most cases accidental. As an illustration
of what I mean by ' accidental' I quote the case of the Muktesar
man-eating tigress. This tigress, a comparatively young animal,
in an encounter with a porcupine lost an eye and got some fifty
quills, varying in length from one to nine inches, embedded in
the arm and under the pad of her right foreleg. Several of these
quills after striking a bone had doubled back in the form of a
U, the point, and the broken-off end, being quite close together.
Suppurating sores formed where she endeavoured to extract the
quills with her teeth, and while she was lying up in a thickpatch