The Tiger Hunters

The Tiger Hunters by Reginold George Burton (b. 1864) makes fascinating reading. The hair raising accounts of the writer’s adventures in the wild in Indian jungles, keep the reader impulsively absorbed in the book. His encounters with beasts have heart throbbing and bewildering. The author was a hunter of tigers instinctively and often risked his life. Besides hunting episodes, the book is replete with events of author’s involvement with India, where he passed his early boyhood and later, prime of youth. The book contains the real-life experiences and events of the author’s life with minute details of observations and accurate memories of his remote past. In the whole book, there is not a tinge of disgust or a version for the native inhabitant’s way of life or the rituals as can often be inferred from the writings of the English writers of the Raj days. Burton is nostalgic about his boyhood days in India where he studied and sailed to England after his father passed away during an encounter with the brigands at the head of his regiment. He returned to India with great eagerness and nostalgia on a posting in the Royal Army. The book ranks among the best of its kind. It’s more than a book on hunting. It reveals of British Army Officer’s whole perception about the country. Its people, its customs, weather and seasons with good memories of his Indian associates, co-hunters and faithful servants. Burton’s account of his days in the West Indies provides an added flavour to his Indian sage. It would be of great interest to readers of the writings of Caribbean writers like V.S. Naipaul today.