left the crop to take its chance till ripe for cutting. At the period few of the villages of the aborigines were, however, without their professional hunter or shikari, who was usually a good shot with his long, heavy matchlock, and his patience was unwearying in sitting up watching for game. He took it in turn to sit up at night in the dhya clearings of the village, getting as remuneration all that he killed and he spared nothing, neither sex nor young animals-and a basket of grain at harvest time besides. The skins of the sambhar deer have always had a considerable value in the market for preparing the well-known soft yellow leather which makes the best of sporting boots and gaiters, etc.

This system of cultivation, if it can be called by that name, was of the most precarious nature. The holding off of rain for a few weeks after the seed was sown, or when the ear was forming, meant the ruin of the crop, and then the owner was usually compelled to subsist entirely on what always largely supplemented his diet-the wild fruits and nourishing roots, with which fortunately for him the Indian Forests are well furnished. The rare seeding of the bamboo was a godsend to these people.

Forsyth's description of what followed in the train of the dhya clearing is of considerable interest, since the history of the forests of this region is so intimately connected with the nomadic life and methods of existence of the aboriginal tribes who had for so long inhabited the area.

"The abandoned dhya clearings are speedily covered again with jungle. The second growth is, however, very different from the virgin forest destroyed by the first clearing; being composed of low and very densely-growing bamboo, and of certain thorny bushes, which together form in a year or two a cover almost impenetrable to man or beast. I have often been obliged to turn back from such a jungle after vainly endeavouring to force through it a powerful elephant accustomed to work his way through difficult cover. In such a thicket no timber tree can ever force its way into daylight; and a second growth of timber on such land can never be expected if left to Nature. The scrub itself does not furnish fuel enough for a sufficient coating of ashes to please the dhya cutter; and so the latter never again returns to an old clearing while untouched forest land is to be had. Now if it be considered that for untold ages the aboriginal inhabitants have been devastating the forests, the cause of the problem that has

OLD UNCUT SAL FORESTS IN CHOTA NAGPUR. A CHARACTERISTIC VIEW. A CONTRACTOR'S FAIR-WEATHER BRIDGE OF SLABS ACROSS A NULLA

puzzled railway engineers-namely, why, in a country with so vast an expanse of forest-covered land, they should yet have to send to England, or Australia, or Norway for their sleeperswill not be far to seek. Stand on any hill-top on the Pachmarhi or other high range, and look over the valleys below you. The dhya clearings can be easily distinguished from treejungle; and you will see that for one acre left of the latter, thousands have been levelled by the axe of the Gond or Korku. In fact, I can say, from an experience reaching over every teak tract in these hills, that, excepting a few preserved by private proprietors, no teak forest ever escaped this treatment, unless so situated in ravines or on precipitous hill-sides as to make it unprofitable to make dhya clearings on its site."

As a natural consequence of this method of cultivation, the people led a wandering nomadic life. They lived in small hamlets, of a few families only in each, scattered at such intervals as would give each settlement a sufficient range of jungle for dhya cutting. The huts were of the most temporary character made of materials from the forest. A few upright posts interlaced with bamboos, plastered with mud and thatched with the broad leaves of the teak with an upperlayer of grass or with grass only. To shift such a settlement entailed but a day or two of work, when the change of dhya sites made a move a necessity. As far as the men were concerned their idea of a pleasant existence was to accomplish the minimum amount of work possible in the shortest period of time, and thus spend the rest of their days in hunting and roaming about in the forests; and this outlook upon life persisted to a much later date, in fact exists in the wilder parts of the country to this date, as many a Forest Officer has discovered for himself.

The dhya cultivation practised throughout the hills of the Central Region was almost in itself sufficient to have proved the ruin of the forests, but other causes had also unfortunately supervened. The most valuable timbers for railway construction and other purposes at the time were the teak and the sâl. No other timbers were considered to be really lasting when subjected to the great and sudden variations of the Indian climate. In this matter the conservatism of the native was hide-bound to a degree: and the British assimilated these opinions without question. Throughout the great Indian Forests, comprising a number of fine useful timbers, many of which should have had a high marketable value, but a few

species were in common use, and against these a merciless war of extermination was waged, no efforts being made to ascertain the value of the rest or their capabilities of replacing for many purposes the few which custom through long ages had come to consider as the only commercial and utilisable timbers. These opinions were to remain in the ascendant for long years after the period here dealt with. Forsyth himself appears to have become, unconsciously perhaps, infected in some slight degree with the prevalent opinions. To some extent his remarks account for the extraordinary rapidity with which a great part of the Bombay, Madras and Tenasserim Forests were cut out during the first half of the century. On this subject Forsyth wrote:

"The teak tree is perhaps the most generally useful in the whole world. In combined strength, lightness, elasticity and endurance there is none to compare with it. At the present day its uses cover a wider range than those of any other timber, from the handle of an axe in its native forests to the backing of an ironclad in the Navy of England. But it is unfortunate also that it is the easiest of all timbers to fell, and makes better firewood and charcoal than any other. It is little wonder then that on it almost exclusively, when found, had fallen the weight of the peoples' requirements, ever since the country was populated by civilised tribes. I have already said that it is a most difficult tree to reproduce, the seeds being exposed to the extremities of danger before they have had the opportunity to germinate. The seedlings also, with their great dried leaves, like so many sheets of tinder, are more exposed to injury by fire than those of any other tree. Thus the teak had been everywhere mercilessly cut down, and had to struggle with the most adverse circumstances to maintain a footing at all. Over great tracts where it once grew it has been utterly exterminated, giving place to such worthless species as the Boswellia, which no one would dream of cutting, and on which Nature has bestowed all the indestructible vitality of a weed. The teak has but one rare and valuable property, by means of which it has alone continued to survive at all in many places. However much it may be cut and hacked, if the root only be left, it will continue to throw up a second growth of shoots, which grow in the course of a few years into the size of large poles. This is the sort of timber which was chiefly in demand for the small native houses before the introduction of our great public works;