КУМАОНСКИЕ ЛЮДОЕДЫ

Man Eaters Of Kumaon

Джим Корбетт (Corbett,Jim.)

Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.j

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON

BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI KUALA LUMPUR

CAPE TOWN 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

np HESE jungle stories by Jim Corbett merit as much popularity 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 for 1 yourself; 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 campaigns, by the villagers whom he went to protect, and by his big-hearted and faithful companion Robin.