Jim Corbett's Jungle Lore - II

On his Jungle Lore, Corbett writes ...

“With the three lessons I have detailed, my jungle training – as far as my elders were concerned – was over. I had been shown how to handle and to fire a gun, and I have been taken into jungles in which there were tigers and bears with the object, I believe, of showing me that no danger was to be apprehended from unwounded animals. Lessons well learnt when young are never afterwards forgotten, and I have absorbed my lessons well.”

“I have used the word ‘absorbed’, in preference to ‘learnt’, for jungle lore is not a science that can be learnt from textbooks; it can, however, be absorbed, a little at a time, and the absorption process can go on indefinitely, for the book of nature has no beginning, as it has no end. Open the book where you will, and at any period of your life, and if you have the desire to acquire knowledge you will find it of intense interest, and no matter how long or how intently you study the pages your interest will not flag, for in nature there is no finality.”

“Few can compile a detective store of fiction, but all can compile jungle detective stories provided they have eyes to see more than the road they walk on, and provided also that they do not start with the assumption that they know all, before in fact they know anything.”