Album with 96 Original Gelatin Silver Photos from Big Game Hunting Trips in the Nilgiri Mountains, Kanara Jungle and Valleys of Godavari and Wardha Rivers in the Central and Southern India. Ca. 1921-1926.

Oblong Folio album (ca. 24x35 cm). 12 card stock leaves. With 96 mounted gelatin silver photographs (mostly printed as real photo postcards), all ca. 8,5x13,5 cm (3 ¼ x 5 ¼ in). All but ten photos with period white ink captions on the mounts. With a large loosely inserted gelatin silver photo ca. 20x30 cm (7 ¾ x 11 ¾ in). Period black cloth album with a gilt-tooled vignette “The Photo Gallery” on the front board. Captions slightly faded, one photo has been previously removed from the album, but overall a very good album with interesting strong images.

Attractive collection of well-preserved vivid photographs of British colonial residents going on big game hunting trips in central and southern India in the 1920s. The images illustrate a 1921 hunting trip to the Nilgiri Mountains (the areas near Ooty, Avalanche Lake and modern-day Mudumalai National Park), a 1923 safari to the Godavari River valley near Karimnagar, a 1926 trip to the “Kanara jungle” near “Bilki” (Bilaki) and “Chipgiri” (Chipageri, both in the state of Karnataka, near the modern-day Sharavati Valley Wildlife Sanctuary), and a 1925 trip to the Wardha River valley on the Central Plains. There are also several photos from a fishing trip to the Nilgiri Mountains in 1923. Most photos show the British hunters (“self,” “Harry,” “Bill”) and their trophies – tigers (including “maneaters”), bison, elephants, bears, caught fish, a panther, and a chinkara antelope. There are also interesting images of a “view from Ooty club,” Ooty and Avalanche Lakes, “the Kundas” (Kunda Hills), “forest bungalow, Mudumalai,” hunting camps, native staff and porters, fishermen in the Godavari River, two examples of “How not to and how to climb for toddy,” “Chipgiri bungalow,” Wardha River, etc. Eight photos at rear portray the album compiler and his racing horses – winners of several races in India in the 1920s. Overall a nice album with sound photos from traditional hunting trips in the jungles and mountains of central and southern India – to the areas, many of which became national parks in independent India.