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Painting Tiger

The Last Tiger Of Corbett

I traveled to India to retrace the adventures of his boyhood hero. Jim Corbett. While there, he would meet the last living villagers who were saved from man-eating tigers by Corbett. the hunter. And he'd see a few of the country's last remaining tigers, which are alive because of Corbett, the conservationist.

YOU'D WALK around the rock if you didn't know its history. Little different from others on the ridge, it is a slab of fine-grain oceanic sandstone about 4 feet tall and 6 feet long that was formed during the upthrust of the Himalayas. On one side of the rock extends a ledge a few inches wide, along the approach from the ghost village of Thak, where vines strangle a dozen slate-roofed houses and a pall hangs over the cavities of the doors. "Still eerie after all this time, isn't it?" I nod to the Indian guide and climb the rock, positioning myself on the ledge where Jim Corbett took his precarious seat at twilight on Nov. 30, 1938. From this spot, Corbett made his last stand against the tigress. Over the past months, her reign of terror had caused the villagers of Thak to abandon their homes and her incessant roaring had cowed thousands of timber workers, causing them to put down their axes and desert the forests. Opening Corbett's book Man-Eaten ofKumaon, I begin to read aloud from bis account of the hunt. Here was an opportunity, admittedly forlorn and unquestionably desperate, of getting a shot... the last I should ever have, and the question was, whether or not I was justified in taking it... for on it would depend the lives of five men.

Corbett filled his lungs to send the call of a n'ger across the valley - an attempt to lure the tigress that had been rampaging the jungles in search of a mate - when the sky held half an hout of light. Four hillmen huddled in a hollow behind the rock. Two goats, brought as bait for the tigress, burrowed under their knees. Beyond one suppressed cough, neither man nor animal had made a sound.

They were probably by now frozen with fear.... For seven days they had been hearing the most exaggerated and blood-curdling tales of this fearsome beast that had kept them awake the past two nights, and now, while darkness was coming on... they were listening to the man-eater drawing nearer and nearer; greater courage, and greater faith, it u not possible to conceive.

FOR 32 YEARS , the people of Kumaon had placed their faith in Corbett's courage. When no one else would or could, he had tracked down and shot a dozen man-eating tigers and leopards. Combined, they had killed more than 1,400 people. Smoking the raw tobacco, bidi, hillmen favored to cloak his odor and on occasion donning a sari to disguise himself as a woman, Corbett had wandered miles of jungle paths on which no one else dared set foot.

But when he climbed the ridge to Thak, the acute senses that had helped make him a household name throughout India were beginning to dim. He was 63, malaria-ridden, periodically laid up for days in a shaking stupor, hard of hearing in his right ear, and all but deaf in his left.

Years of strain, disease, and exposure had taken such a toll on his constitution that his sister, Maggie, had made him promise this would be his final hunt for man-eaters. The night would mark a turning point in Corbett's life. If his days had ended here, he would still be remembered as a friend and benefactor of India's poor, and as a man whom villagers in the remote hills could count on to answer their prayers.

But it was Corbett's hie horn this point forward that would secure his position in history - as the author of Man-Eaters of Kumaon and five other books that have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, making him the bestselling hunting writer of all time; and, in what some may see as a twist of irony, as India's pioneer conservationist.

It was Corbett who first raised the alarm of the tiger's imminent demise from overshooting and habitat destruction. It was Corbett who founded the country's seminal conservation magazine, Indian Wildlife. And it was Corbett who fought to establish India's first wildlife sanctuary, which in time became the nation's flagship national park and most important tiger reserve. Through his deeds, writing, and personal influence with those who held power in colonial India - as well as his influence on leading conservationists in India today - Corbett may have done more to save the world's greatest cat than any other individual.

Such was the history that hung in the balance as the tigress sent roar after roar through the gloaming and approached, unseen, to within a few feet of the sandstone rock.

70 years after Corbett hunted the Thak man-eater. For me it was a pilgrimage, a chance to see the country Corbett painted so vividly in words and to speak with the handful of villagers who had known him when they were young. Ever since I was 8 years old, when my father bought me a secondhand copy of Man-Eaters of Kumaon, traveling to India had been a dream. My father had similar hopes, but if his were lost in the dust of the decades, mine seemed farther away still. For even if I could make the trip, what were the chances that jungles brought to life on faded paper would remain intact today, in the face of India's burgeoning population?

About the Author

Raj Aryan is a content writer. Presently working with a Tour Package company. Find India vacation packages and online at Cheap flights tickets to India, providing the best selection and availability of cheap tickets.

i want to know the meaning of tiger and dragon in chinese painting?

the meaning of the tiger and the dragon? why must they both in the painting?

In the ancient china, people believed that the emperor is the descendant of the dragon. So dragon couldn't become a Yin creature.

Dragon mean power and authority. Tiger mean straight. If both creature appeal in a painting, it is try to high light the position of the owner.

Some one believed that this creatures could prevent some type of evil creatures entering owner building.

Speed Painting Tiger

Tags: art, chinese painting tiger, design, illustration, painting, painting tiger eyes, painting tiger stripes, painting tiger tank, painting tigers, portfolio

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