hood of the large cities and towns. The repeated demands made upon these areas to provide for the requirements of the communities led through constant and ruthless exploitation to the entire disappearance of considerable forest tracts.

This was the position when, in 1856, the Authorities decided upon replacing the old " Brown Bess" musket by the " Minié" rifle. The cartridges of these rifles were greased, and the soldiers, in the words of the drill book, had "to bring the cartridge to the mouth, holding it between the forefinger and thumb with the ball in their hand, and bite off the top elbow close to the body." This was tantamount to asking the high-caste native to defile himself and lose his caste by touching the fat of animals, and probably of cows. For the fat used for the cartridges made at home was from animals, and the paper so treated had to be torn with the teeth before the cartridge could be used. The representations of the Sepoys were treated with contempt by the Commander-in-Chief, in spite of warnings from British officers who understood the true position; and a belated attempt to revoke the order came too late. There were other grievances connected with the decision that all regiments, including the Bengal ones, must undertake oversea service, the order entailing a loss of caste to the latter which might take years to get back.

The peace and prosperity of the spring of 1856 had disappeared in the opening months of 1857, and on Sunday, May 10th, the Indian Mutiny broke out at Meerut. Nearly a year elapsed before the insurrection was quelled. During that period the extraordinary want of statesmanship and vacillation which heralded and attended its opening phases had given place to numberless examples of unexampled heroism; many fine and brave men, British and Indian, had gone to their long account; whilst British women had shown once again the magnificent courage with which they are capable of facing adversity and even death.

The incidence of the Mutiny at once threw into glaring relief the paucity of the communications in the country. The necessity for railway construction, if only to facilitate the movement of troops and their equipment, had become evident. The Government set themselves feverishly to work to repair the want of foresight of their predecessors. The urgent demands for timber to provide the sleepers for the new railway lines were met in the time-honoured fashion, and great forest areas in the central and northern parts of India which,.owing

to the scanty population and their inaccessibility, had hitherto remained untouched by man, were ruined in order to supply the demands. No supervision was exercised over the work. Large numbers of trees were felled in the forests without reference to the possibility of extracting the logs, numbers of which remained in situ unutilised, to be subsequently burnt in the jungle fires. It was the aftermath of the Mutiny, and unfortunately within a few years damage was done to these fine forests which has exercised all the skill and knowledge of the Forest Department to repair, and will take many more years to complete. This exploitation on the old lines occurred in the first years of the newly reconstituted Government in India. In Bombay, Madras and Burma, especially in the latter Province under Mr. Brandis, as will be shown, some progress in true forest administration was attempted, as a result of the enunciation by Lord Dalhousie of a definite Forest Policy. And notable beginnings were made in the Central Provinces and the Punjab, as will be detailed. In the N.W. Provinces, Oudh, Bengal and Assam, conservancy was only in the initial stages at the close of the period here dealt with.

The old East India Company did not long survive the Mutiny. The same storm which drove the last of the Moguls from Delhi to exile and death in Burma destroyed the great Company whose sovereignty had been founded on the crumbling ruins of the Mogul Empire. The East India Company had failed to advance with the times. They had continued to govern India as they had commenced sixty years and more before. The Mutiny had increased the debt; repeated financial crises had been the outcome of their rule in the latter years; private enterprise and trading were discouraged, the great resources of the country remained undeveloped, and the commerce of the country was negligible.

The British people recognised that the form of government, which led to the Mutiny, had failed; and the subsequent publicity given to the maladministration of the country justified this view. The "double Government of the Crown and the Company was no longer possible, and the entire administration was therefore assumed by the nation.

On the 1st November, 1858, a royal proclamation, issued throughout British India, declared the sovereignty of Queen Victoria as Empress of India.

The assumption of the duty of governing India by the

British people was to have far-reaching results in a great development in the prosperity of the country. And the forests, amongst other sources of public utility and wealth, were to be gradually brought under an efficient administration. That the importance of placing the forests under a proper system of conservation was fully realised before the close of the period the despatches of the Government of India and the Secretary of State, reproduced in the last chapter of this volume, will sufficiently indicate.

Mr. Brandis could not have taken up his work at a more opportune moment. For if the past is any criterion to the future the great work he was able to accomplish for the conservation of the Indian forests would have proved impossible under the system of administration developed by the East India Company in the plenitude of their power.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BEGINNINGS OF FOREST CONSERVANCY IN THE MADRAS

I

PRESIDENCY, 1858-1864

DR. CLEGHORN'S WORK IN MADRAS

T has been already shown that in August, 1856, Dr. Cleghorn submitted a Report to the Government of Madras, containing proposals for establishing Forest Conservancy. These proposals were forwarded to the Government of India for sanction, which was accorded in November. On the 19th December, 1856, Cleghorn was appointed Conservator of Forests in the Presidency of Madras.

During the next five years the Conservator toured through various portions of the Presidency, and submitted three General Reports on the forests and his suggestions for the introduction of an efficient protection and general prescriptions of management. These Reports, with other official documents and some unofficial papers, he subsequently incorporated in his book, Forests and Gardens of Southern India, published in 1861, during a period of sick leave at home. This little book, consisting principally of official documents, did not aim at being a treatise on forestry administration in a scientific sense. It was too early for that. But it served its purpose in bringing before the public a totally unknown and, at that time, unattempted branch of Indian administration, and thus, as Brandis subsequently acknowledged, “did much to promote Forest Conservancy in India." It forms an invaluable record of the work accomplished by Cleghorn during this period. He kept his attention focused on the chief points with regard to the protection of the forests, which had for so long been crying aloud for consideration and immediate action, and his recommendations on these heads were a move in the right direction.

Cleghorn sounded the right note, heard almost for the first time in India, on the subject of the necessity of studying the

sylviculture of the forests, laying considerable stress on the necessity of the Forest Officer acquiring a sound knowledge of the principal trees and shrubs, as well as of the climate, soil and forest growth in the different tracts. With reference to that urgent need, the protection of the forests from the improvident acts of the people and the destructive ones of the timber merchant, and even the official, Cleghorn studied the chief sources of injuries to which the forests were subjectedfires, Kumri cultivation, and indiscriminate and uncontrolled cutting, and made strong and wise suggestions to counter and put a stop to these evils. The outcome of his persistent representations was at the time a marked success; in spite of the considerable official, as well as non-official, opposition in several quarters-opposition which a study of the previous history of forest operations will have shown to be inevitable. By an order of May, 1860, the Government of Madras prohibited Kumri cultivation in Government forests without previous permission having been obtained, and directed that this permission should be given sparingly, and never for areas in timber forests. Cleghorn was thus able to secure the application of a measure to the forests of the Madras Presidency, which he had helped to bring into force in the Mysore Forests thirteen years before with, in both cases, most beneficial results for the country and its inhabitants. securing this great step towards the protection of the forests, he was greatly assisted by the respect and friendship with which he was regarded by the natives. As a medical man his name was widely known amongst them, and this fortunate factor in itself gave him great influence amongst the people. They trusted him and believed in the disinterested nature of his work and proposals, and were aware that he had an intimate knowledge of their mode of life and system of agriculture both of which, by the way, are indispensable to the good Forest Officer. Cleghorn's popularity with the people and his known keenness for their welfare, so universally acknowledged, was naturally common knowledge amongst the higher officials whose confidence he enjoyed; and to this personal factor, more especially in the light of the subsequent retrograde policy introduced, may be attributed the signal initial success secured by the Conservator in this important matter of protection. It may be mentioned here, in order to maintain the sequence in the narrative, that at a later period Mysore, for a time, again allowed Kumri cultivation within