Editorial Reviews. Review. `It was not only the ripping-yarn action of the stories and the Kindle Store; ›; Kindle eBooks; ›; Crafts, Hobbies & Home. This title is. The presence of a man-eating tiger in the Indian province of Naini Tal spread fear and panic throughout the impoverished rural community. This tigress had. 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.
| Author: | Gogar Jugor |
| Country: | Seychelles |
| Language: | English (Spanish) |
| Genre: | Life |
| Published (Last): | 3 May 2017 |
| Pages: | 23 |
| PDF File Size: | 7.95 Mb |
| ePub File Size: | 18.76 Mb |
| ISBN: | 819-9-70718-379-4 |
| Downloads: | 74382 |
| Price: | Free* [*Free Regsitration Required] |
| Uploader: | Akinokazahn |
These full-grown animals were of no use to me, but knowing that refusal to accept them would give offence, I thanked the old lady and assured her I would draw on her for bait as soon as I had used up the four young male buffaloes I had brought with me from Naini Tal.
I had gone but a short distance along the edge of the ravine when I came on the tracks earers the stampeding cattle, and following these tracks back I had no diffi- culty in finding the spot where the cow had been killed.
A police guard was then mounted over the carcass, and next day, when all the people of the countryside were assembled, the trunk, legs and tail of the tigress were cut up into small pieces and distributed.
It had taken us the best part of an hour to acquire this information, and if the chital now caught sight of us and warned the jungle folk of our presence, they would in one second undo the good they had so far done. On the present occasion we found the woman’s clothes, and a few pieces of bone which we wrapped up in the clean cloth we had brought for the purpose.
Having watched him out of sight I turned and entered the bungalow. The frequency with which a man-eating tiger kills depends on a the supply of natural food in the area in which it is operating; 6 the nature of the disability which has caused it to become a man-eater, and c whether it is a male or a female with cubs.
I had been sitting for some minutes, scanning the slope, with my back to a solitary pine which grew at this spot, when a movement high up on the hill caught my eye.
Two very useful lessons Robin learned from his hairbreadth escape, which he never in after-life forgot. The people of our hills are Hindus and cremate their dead, and when one of their number has been carried off by a man- eater it is incumbent on the relatives to recover some portion of the body for cremation even if it be only a few splinters of bone.
I have told you the story, and while I have been telling it Robin the biggest-hearted and the most faithful friend man ever had has gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds, where I know I shall find him waiting for me.
A skilled tracker, he preferred to hunt alone and on foot, sometimes accompanied ebolk his small dog 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. By the afternoon of the kuman day I had exploded every bit of the valley, and I was making my way up a grassy slope intent on rejoining my men at Dalkania when I heard a long- drawn-out cooee ewters the direction of the cattle-shed.
The smoke from the black powder cartridge obscured my view and the men said nothing had happened and that I had probably fired at a rock, or a bunch of dead leaves.
Man-eaters of Kumaon
Pitifully little as these remains were, they would suffice for the cremation ceremony which would en- sure the ashes of the high caste woman reaching Mother Ganges. Except for a strained look in her eyes the dumb woman appeared to be quite normal and, when I stopped to speak to her and tell her I had come to mumaon and shoot the tiger that had killed her sister, she put her hands together and stooping down touched my feet, making me feel a wretched impostor.
The range was shorter now, and, adjusting the leaf sight, I waited until the bigger of the two slowed down and put a bullet through its back, and as the other one turned, and made off diagonally across the hill, I kuamon it through the shoulder. When it was considered that the ropes were long and strong enough to stand the strain, they attached themselves to the saplings, and with men on either side to hold the feet of the bearers and give them foothold, the procession moved up the hill, looking for all the world like an army of ants carrying a beetle up the face of a wall.
Behind the main army was a second and a smaller one the Eatsrs being carried up. It was difficult to skin the animal with so many people crowding round, and to curtail the job I cut the head and paws from the trunk and left them adhering to the skin, to be dealt with later.
Once again the tigress was carrying a naked woman, but mercifully on this occasion her burden was dead. The presence of a man-eating tiger in the Indian province of Naini Tal spread fear and panic throughout the impoverished rural community.
Full text of “Man Eaters Of Kumaon”
Merlin Unwin Books Limited Imprint: Our way lay along the ridge and once again I stood among the blackthorn bushes on the thorns of which long tresses of the girl’s hair had caught, and for the last time looked down into the amphitheatre which had been the scene of our recent exploit.
Next morning, accompanied by a number of men, one of whom was carrying his empty rifle and leading the way, he set out intending to take up the tracking where he had left off. The leopard’s spring and my shot were simultaneous, and side-stepping to the left and leaning back as far as I could I fired the second barrel from my hip into his side as he passed me.
I had an unhurried shot with an accurate rifle at his right shoulder, at the short range of fifteen yards. As soon as the tiger and its victim were out of sight, the terror-stricken women and girls ran back to the village.
The expedition was a great success in more ways than one; for in addition to eategs a ration of meat for everyone, it gained me the confidence of the entire village. On occasions one is privileged to accomplish the seemingly impossible.
Man-eaters of Kumaon | Rupa Publications
The suggestion was adopted, and three times the party got as far as the ravine. The ground here was quite open and it was difficult to conceive how an animal the size of a tiger could have approached twelve people unseen, and its presence not detected, until attention had been attracted by the choking sound made by the girl.
Leopards, unlike tigers, are to a certain extent scavengers and become man-eaters by acquiring a taste for human flesh when unrestricted slaughter of game has deprived them of their natural food. A bed of Strobilanthes, the bent stalks of which were slowly regaining their upright position, showed where, and how recently, the tigress had passed, and a little further on under an overhanging rock I found where she had left her kill when she came to have a look at me.
A cub will eat whatever its mother provides, and I have even known of tiger cubs mn their mothers to kill human beings: When’ it was half-way down it disappeared into heavy grass, and disturbed two ghooral that had been lying up there.
A dozen times I found where she had rested; and after each of these rests the blood trail became more distinct.
My presence was beginning to put new heart into the people Man-eaters of Kumaon and they were moving about more freely, but I had not yet gained sufficient of their confidence to renew my request of being shown round the jungle, to which I attached some im- portance. The men begged me not to skin the kumzon there, and asked me to let them have her until nightfall to carry through their villages, saying that if their womenfolk oof children did not see her with their own eyes, they would not believe that their dread enemy was dead.
Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett
Entering the ravine a hundred yards below the tree, and working up, I found the pug marks of a tiger in some fine earth that had sifted down between two big eagers these pug marks showed the animal to be a tigress, a little past her prime. He empathised with the impoverished people amongst whom he kumaoon, in what is today Uttarakhand, and he established India’s first tiger sanctuary there. We appreciate your feedback.
His way led over the previous day’s blood trail, and while still a mile from the spot where the tiger had been left, the leading man, who incidentally was the local shikari, walked on to the wounded tiger and was killed.