Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

Legendary Hunters, Legendary Rifles

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Brian H.’s mention of the magnificent book The Tiger in a comment sent me exploring on Youtube Sunday night. You don’t have to go very far down the path of tigers and hunting before you run into the towering figure of Jim Corbett.

One of the finest men to ever pick up a rifle — and a pen — Corbett was a slayer of man-eaters, leopards and tigers that terrorized the villagers of rural India. This is the hero’s role in its purest form: Slaying monsters on behalf of the helpless.

Corbett was a client of John Rigby & Co. (hear that Rick Schwertfeger?) and the NRA’s Under Wild Skies served up a nice recounting of the return of his classic Rigby .275 to the hunting grounds where he earned it. The rifle was presented to him in 1907, in appreciation for the slaying of the Champawat Tiger,  a female Bengal that killed an estimated 436 people in Nepal and the Kumaon region of India.

Corbett also packed a .450-400 Nitro Express. It was, in fact, the rifle that slew the Champawat Tiger. That rifle is profiled here:

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As you all know, Frederick Courteney Selous is one of my favorite Frontier Partisans, one of those profiled in Warriors of the Wildlands. Legendary Firearms also takes a look at Selous’ .256 Holland & Holland, the one that’s leaning against the wagon in the picture on the FP masthead. An elegant single-shot rifle. Note that Selous’ walking stick, presented by Cecil Rhodes, is also featured in the still life.

Comments

  1. I looked at a couple of these in Scotland. Absolutely a work of art, but way above my pay grade. One belonged to a Gillie and had a suppressor on it. It was lovingly worn. Another was in a gun store.

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  4. To those so inclined…I feel it only prudent to warn that the New England Custom Guns website can be a dangerous, dangerous place. Apparently it’s where I wind up when I don’t think I’ve spent enough at Midway or Brownells.

    …couldn’t pick a cheap hobby, I guess.

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  5. The new History Book Club newsletter has a book that will catch your eye.

    1) “Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick.” By David Frye

    Described as “Instead of focusing on the centers of civilizations, he illuminates the boundaries where civilizations collide.”

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      • Thanks. My vision of pre-urban or rather frontier Nairobi is of Tusker as well as gin and tonic testosterone. Keep an empty bottle of Tusker on man cave desk. Early part of the book seems to reinforce this.

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        • Jim I just ordered Man Eaters of Kuamon, forgive my spelling, regardless, I usually recommend the books, BUT I enjoyed your entry so much. Thanks again. I will review my Kipling library and see if he wrote anything, Jungle Books aside. {We should all know about the lame man-eater there }. Best

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  7. I have an early copy of Man Eaters of Kumaon. One of those “well look at that” moments at a used bookstore.

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    • Have I told this story before? Cain’t keep up with what I’ve told where, having told so many to so many. Anyway, here it is(again?). Back in the days before Amazon, and when I could not imagine what I’d ever need a credit card for(so therefore had none), I had looked in vain, and longed and longed for ANY of Jim Corbett’s books, which I’d only read excerpts from in other books(mostly ones about tigers and leopards, of course). All copies then were “out of print”, and unavailable to my resources at the time. FINALLY, they did a mass market reprint of “The Maneaters of Kumaon”, and I JUMPED on it! This was right before my incredible, once-in-a-lifetime trip to Africa,(early 1980’s) so I took it along to read and reread. I quickly discovered, in those long ago days, a visitor there bearing new BOOKS, was considered a treasure to be mined indeed! I had a stack of ’em(and boy howdy, was I ever glad I lugged them along!), and they were constantly being borrowed by the many deprived literates I bumped into. One of the NEATEST fellows I ever met(not just in Africa, but in my life!) was a 3rd generation Greek farmer/rancher, who supplied my hostess, Jane Goodall, with food for herself and her dogs(meat scraps and bones–no commercial dogfood to be had in Tanzania at the time! These dogs were strays Jane took in at her “Command Post” house on the coast–they could not have survived in Gombe National Park–if the chimps and baboons hadn’t killed them, the leopards there certainly would have!). GOSH, what incredible stories this fellow could tell! He had a grown, college-aged son, who worked as a Big Game Hunter guide, and he was visiting one day, and nearly shat a brick when he saw my copy of Corbett–BEGGED to borry it–which I was most happy to oblige. But….I never got it back–despite this fellow having lots of opportunities to do so. Okay–I’m kinda possessive of my books–especially, at that time, THAT PARTICULAR book, which I’d only just got, and only read ONCE-IT! Rather like that comment made regarding Finch-Hatten in the film “Out Of Africa”……But I reigned in my aggravation, trying not to be selfish, as these poor sods had ZERO access to such–maybe I could get another copy when I got back to the States…. Months later, African adventure long past(mass market paperback copy now unavailable–of course!), I was in an old bookstore in the Appalachians, and mine eyes POPPED when I saw a CHEAP-AS-DIRT(cheaper than what I’d paid for that mass market paperback!) early HARDBACK copy of the same. Only one word for it. Karma!

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  8. Great story Lane! For those who haven’t read it, find a copy of Bartle Bull’s history of African hunter/explorers, Safari.

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  9. In my opinion, any discussion about legendary hunters must include John A. Hunter, and his book “Hunter” is a must-read. I got a copy of it as a teen, and literally read the cover off of it. I am pretty sure that Jim read that same copy a time or two. Naturally, Hunter discusses the merits of many of the rifles that he used on the vast variety of game that he hunted on the Dark Continent. It is a fine read about an era that will never be revisited, and Hunter turned out to be a pretty fair writer.

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