I am reading the book  ‘My India’ by Jim Corbett. Jim Corbett was a Big Game Hunter turned benvironmentalist and wildlife photographer who flourished in the first half of the 20th Century.  I already have a copy of his book ‘Maneaters of Kumaon’ detailing  his later exploits of hunting and shooting man eating tigers in India, oth books are wonderfully written and highly enjoyable (if you can leave aside your squeamishness for a while) and if the tales he relates are true they are truly wonderful!

Now, I have liistened to more than my fair share of bullsh*tters and tall tale tellers relating all sorts of wondrous deeds yet am still inclined to believe this chap because all the liars I have met have spun tales about their own derring do and brushes with death but Jim ta;ks about other peoples deeds and dangers as well as his own which is uncommon for liars and braggarts to do.

He tells of when he was hunting a tiger wth a chap called Har Singh when they were surprised by a tiger. Jim had learnt to climb a tree but Har Singh hadn’t, so while Jim scaled his tree Har Singh was crushed to the trunk of his by the tiger!  The tiger had stretched its arms around the tree and according to Jim’s tale… started to claw big bits of bark and wood off the far side of the tree.  While it was so engaged Har Singh was screaming and the tiger was roaring

Jim frightened off the tiger by firing shots from his rifle into the air and went down to help his friend.

‘He  found that one of the tiger’s claws  had entered his stomach and torn the lning from near his navel to near his backbone away and that all his insides had fallen out.

He wondered whether it would be best to cut off all the insides that were now outside or to put them all back inside.  He chose the latter course so gathered up all the dangling bits and covered as they were with leaves and grass and bits of sticks  put them all back inside, then winding a cloth round Har Singh’s wound and with the man holding the  ‘bandage’ in place they walked the seven miles back to their village when they got near to home they decided it would be better to go a further three miles to the hospital where they could get help.  When they got there the hospital was shut but the doctor who lived close by was awake so with the help of a local shopkeeper who held up a lantern Jim held the two sides of the wound together while the doctor sewed it up.  Har Singh survived and died many years later of old age but as Jim commented ‘it is important that everyone hunting tigers should know how to climb trees; if Har Singh had learnt how to do so he woyuld have saved us all a lot of trouble…