Just quick heads up for fans of Jim Corbet. Peter Byrne, a former PH who operated in the same part of India that Corbet hunted has released a book based on around 20 years of research of Corbet and his dealings with man eating tigers and leopards.

Rather than an a straight forward biography, he has taken each book written by Corbet and broken it down chapter by chapter to analyse it from a hunters perspective. He has researched the back ground to each hunt, including the geography and some of the characters involved and has included some recent and not so recent photographs of locations mentioned by Corbet .

Although he has great admiration for Corbet, he does question some of his actions in certain circumstances, and highlights that luck did play its part in Corbet’s survival in his early years.

Byrne goes on to metion some of his own jungle experiences, comparing/contrasting them to those of Corbet in similar circumstances.

I have not finished the book yet, but it is shaping up into a very interesting read…

The book is called “Shakari Sahib” by Peter Byrne, priced �20 plus P&P from Coch y Bonddu Books here in the UK.

Regards,

Pete

Sounds good Pete. I'll put it on my Christmas list.

Some other good reads on the life of Jim Corbett include:

"Carpet Sahib- A Life Of Jim Corbett" by Martin Boothe

"Jim Corbett Of Kumaon" by D.C. Kala

"Jim Corbett- Master Of The Jungle" by Tim Werling

I haven't seen that book yet, but mentioning that Byrne questions some of Corbett's actions struck a chord! Corbett did quite a few strange things. One of them that I recall from one of his books is where Corbett mentions going after a man-eating tiger and taking only 3 (THREE!) rounds of ammunition with him!

I guess he figured one for the tiger, one for back-up, and one for "emergencies"!

He ended-up shooting at the tiger and running out of ammo - but I can't remember what he did in the end.

Cooper: he finished the tigress with an old gun from a villager. The arm had a broken barrel and Corbett hit a paw, the beast already dyng for previous shots. I�ve also being plagued by the same question: why only three cartridges?. One must conclude that�s the only ammo he had at the time.
These books are of course unobtainable here.

Nainital: try amazon.com or abe.com; they're available anywhere in the world.

fla3006,

"Carpet Sahib- A Life Of Jim Corbett", is already on my "wish list" of books and I have found a copy which I will be ordering shortly.

With reference To Corbet only having 3 rounds and running out of ammo, he does do some very strange things at times. I am sure that he ran out of ammo (5 rounds?) on another occasion too if I recall correctly..

However, even after readingy Corbets books along with the various biographies of his life, we still really don't know the background and day to day circumstances Corbet had to deal with.

Before reading Byrne's book, one thing I did not appriciate was just how big a gap existed between th first couple of maneater hunts and what I am not clear about is just how much cat hunting he did in between them. Another thing that Byrne highlights is that Corbet rarely hunted maneaters untill officially requested to by the local Government/ Administration. It would seem that a couple had been operating a couple of years before Corbet went after them even though he had been following their progress through press reports ect. I find this quite strange, and I am not quite sure what to make of it....

Regards,

Pete

fla3006: Thanks, the trouble here is that I can�t charge my credit card in u$s due to some restrictions originated in Argentina�s default.
Regarding Corbett�s strange hunting career I fully agree, i.e. remembering the man eater of Rudraprayag and his many close calls with that cat. It should also be noted that he was a full member of the British Army, which perhaps can explain his late arrival to some hideous cases.
Nevertheless I rate him one of the most corageous men this world has seen and a very modest one at hat.
His fleeing from independent India to Africa and his last years there I don�t know about, but his conservation efforts must have been very important

nainital,

Although Corbet served during WW2, I believe that for most of life he was a minor cival servant; a cargo clerk for the railway company...in WW2 I seem to recall he was an instrustor at a British Jungle Warefare school....

Regards

Pete

Pete: thanks for your comments. It is said than some 3% of all tigers turn to man eaters. Considering that during Corbett�s career should have been around 70.000 tigers in India, and at least so many leopards, I guess that he had too many parties to attend!. The money thing never was mentioned in his books but I think that even then hunting a smart and overcautious tiger was not a cheap sport.
Regards

British: Thanks. I own already that book and also Man Eaters of Kumaon. Present troubles are due to Argentina�s default as per January of 2002. My credit cards can�t be charged in foreign currency yet. Thus I can�t buy anything by e commerce.
Third world blues....

Shikari Sahib can be found at this web address:
http://www.anglebooks.com/index.php
The ISBN No. is 817769183X
Cost is about $34.00 US

They also list many other Corbett Books I was not aware of.