It had been Corbett’s devout loyalty to the empire that spurred him to go into the jungle after the man-eaters. It was his duty, he believed. Colonizers were supposed to improve the lives of the people they colonized; that was the justification for the whole imperial system. Of course it’s clear now that the justification was fraudulent, and it was clear to many people in the early twentieth century, but it wasn’t clear to Corbett. The irony in this case was that the empire had almost certainly been responsible for creating the man-eaters
