Carpet Sahib A Life of Jim Corbett

Jim Corbett was a domiciled European born in 1875 in the lesser-known Indian hill station of Naini Tal, the eighth child of Christopher Corbett, the town postmaster. Although he began his working life in a lowly position on the Bengal and North Western Railway, his heart remained in his birthplace, the jungles of Kumaon in the Siwalik foothills of the Himalayas. Whenever he could he returned there to hunt. From childhood, Jim Corbett was at one with the jungles, an expert shikari and an excellent shot, killing his first leopard when he was eight. Tigers were his most sought-after prey but, in time, he began to turn towards conservation. From the mid-1920s, he ceased to shoot tigers for sport: instead he photographed them. He did not stop killing tigers altogether: he still hunted -but man- eaters.