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Sanderson undertook his elephant-catching operations on the Chengree and Myanee Rivers, tributaries flowing from the north-west and joining the Karnafuli, the former at Rangamatti and the latter at Kassalong above the frontier outpost. The officer in charge of the "kheddah " had never gone above Rangamatti, leaving the actual work of entrapping the elephants to his native jemadars in charge of the parties of hunters. Sanderson took charge of the whole operations in person and was thus probably the first European to visit the forest region on these rivers. He crossed into the Hill Tracts from RajamakaBheeta in the north-east of the Chittagong Collectorate (which he terms the coast district). The latter village was in the highly cultivated open country, which was comparatively level save for low hills. He provisioned his expedition by means of a fleet of dugouts, one of the convoys proceeding up the Chengree from Rangamatti, the other up the Myanee; whilst Sanderson with the elephants and his party marched across the hills. The usual method of travelling for Europeans and natives alike in this region was in dugout canoes, the larger ones being planked up on the sides and having semicircular mat roofs. The crew consisted of a steersman and two rowers. These boats were sailed before the wind, but otherwise rowed, poled or towed from the bank. In the Karnafuli the tide ran up to a short way beyond Rangamatti, which was 80 miles distant from Chittagong. Smaller dugout canoes had to be used in the tributary rivers higher up.

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Rajamaka-Bheeta was a small village," says Sanderson, on the border of the immense forest which extends without a break from Chittagong for hundreds of miles north and east through Tipperah, the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Lushai country, and south through Arracan and Burma. On the 29th December I stood on the edge of the jungle at Rajamaka-Bheeta, whilst the men entered in single file, each salaaming and crying 'Allah! Allah!' by way of invoking luck. The matchlock men led the van, firing feux de joie with a few rounds I had given them from the magazine to celebrate the commencement of our enterprise." To the plainsmen of India the great forests were regarded as a terrible place, the abode of devils and monsters, a region to be avoided at all costs. Even the kheddah" men who, says Sanderson, were rascals of various degrees," and assuredly he would have obtained no other class of man to enter the jungles to undertake so dangerous and irregular an employment, faced the great

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Forests with fear and trepidation. That this fear and dread of entering the forest regions has passed away to some extent is true. But it has by no means wholly passed from the better classes of Indians, from whom it will be absolutely essential that the Staff should be recruited under the new system of administering India recently inaugurated if the administration of the forests is to be carried on with the efficiency it has now reached and if it is to make the continued progress that is confidently expected.

From Rajamaka-Bheeta to the range of blue hills, the Bhangamoora Range, to be seen in the distance, 50 miles away in a north-easterly direction, the hilly country was mainly covered with grass 10 feet high, or bamboos and wild plantain with some patches of open tree forest. "This was country which had been cleared and cultivated at intervals from time immemorial, relapsing for a few years into waste." The few villagers he passed Sanderson describes as those of Hill Aracanese and Chuckmas with strongly marked IndoBurmese faces, the houses all raised upon bamboo platforms about 10 feet from the ground, a good protection against malaria and dampness. On the top of the Bhangamoora Range, when he eventually reached there after three days' difficult march through a pathless country of hills, Sanderson says: "The view from the top of this hill was uninteresting. Before us were higher hills" (the Kalamoin Range, on the other side of which was the Myanee Valley) "covered with nothing but long grass with a few bamboos in the hollows; behind us all the fine trees had been jhumed off the country."

At the bottom of the northern face of the Bhangamoora lay the Chengree Valley and stream. Here Sanderson found fine heavy timber forest clear of undergrowth. This was the type of forest which he required for his operations, since wild elephants would not be found in open grass country.

The point at which Sanderson struck the Chengree was, he estimated, about 100 miles above Rangamatti and perhaps 60 miles from its source. The river here was only 15 yards wide and 2 feet deep. He noticed that it was very muddy for a hill stream, this being the usual condition of the streams in these hills, as they flow through alluvial soil void of rock. The Myanee River to the east, whose valley is situated between the Kalamoin and Dalamoin Ranges, is somewhat larger than the Chengree. Sanderson thus describes the forest on the Chengree:

"The forest was very fine along the Chengree, being open forest of huge timber and giant creepers, with here and there patches of canes, the beautifully glossy, dark green serrated leaves of which, several feet in length, like giant ferns, shone in the morning sunlight. Nothing can be imagined more graceful or beautiful than a cane-bush (the ordinary cane of commerce). It often grows in extensive plots, but frequently in single plants, as a creeper running up trees and crowning them with graceful plumes. The cane requires a moist, rich soil. There are several varieties: one makes the best walkingcanes, another is used for basket-work, a third for the rattan of chair bottoms, etc. Several of the men of our party were adepts at cane work, and they made me many nice and useful articles of camp furniture. Of all prickly things in creation the cane is perhaps the foremost, very different in its natural state from the smooth, but still pungent, implement of our schooldays' recollection. It grows of all lengths, often above 200 feet, and both stem, leaves and tendrils are covered with horrible thorns. Its fruit hangs in clusters of about fifty berries, each being the size of a cherry and of a bright cream colour, with a singular appearance of being carved out of wood. They are edible. The cane itself contains a large quantity of water throughout its length. I cut 22 feet off one of about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and by simply blowing through it obtained half a tumblerful. The roots and sprouts when just above ground make a good vegetable. To prepare the cane for commerce, the rough peel studded with thorns is merely stripped off, and the cane is ready for use."

Sanderson did not possess the botanical knowledge to be able to indicate the different species of fine timber trees he was making a first acquaintance with in this region. But the giant timber trees he alludes to were species of Dipterocarpus, Swintonia, Tetrameles and Chickrassia, with other valuable timber trees, such as Lagerströmia Flos-Regina, Dichopsis, Gmelina, Mesua, Cedrela, etc. In addition to the grass and wild plantains which he notices as so plentiful in the “ jhumed areas, he must have found in the Chengree and Myanee Forests an undergrowth of palms such as Livistona and Licuala. In fact, all the characters of a tropical forest. For the Chittagong Forests, with those of Tenasserim, are the most really tropical of the forests of the Indian Empire.

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Having received news of a herd of elephants having been

surrounded by one of his parties higher up the Chengree, Sanderson marched up to the spot. "The forest for the most part of the way-our path skirted the Chengree-was fine open forest that had never been cut, except near a large jhuma settlement called Gasban, which we passed at 12 oclock (after five hours' marching). The trees were so tall, and the shade so high and close, that nothing more than a skull-cap was necessary, the sun being unable to penetrate the dark forest." There were very few inhabitants in this part of the hills at that period, Gasban being the only settlement for many miles round. The people in the plains, says Sanderson, called all the hill people "jhumas," from their practice of shifting cultivation. The people were of several tribes, consisting at that time, he was told, of settlers from Aracan, Chuckmas, Mugs, Tipperahs, and to the east the dreaded Kookies or Lushais. Of these tribes the Chuckmas, he thought, appeared to have more claims to be called aboriginal to the Chittagong Hills than the others, though the Kookies were aboriginal in the eastern portion. "The one thing," says Sanderson, "about which there seemed no doubt at all was that the Kookies terrified the rest out of their seven senses, or had done so till recently, by occasional raids to the westward, where they are represented to have put to the sword everybody but such women as they carried off into captivity. It resulted from this that large tracts had been abandoned from time to time by the 'jhumas,' when the Kookies, who seem to be a fine warlike race, were hard upon them. Within the last few years, however, the establishment of Rangamatti and Demagiri as frontier police posts, constituting a guard between the troublesome Kookies and the tribes to the west, has given confidence to the latter, and the Hill Tracts will probably be better populated soon." Sanderson's prophecy proved correct. But the writer found a quarter of a century later that the increased population had resulted in the more rapid devastation of the fine forests owing to the "jhuming" operations carried out; and he had occasion to strongly represent this aspect of the position to the Commissioner, and accompanied the latter on a visit to the Hill Tracts in order to validate his contention. Sanderson continues :

"A European political officer and a police officer live at Rangamatti and another police officer at Demagiri, and these maintain amicable relations with the Kookies. It is the Kookies' annual custom, I was informed, to have extensive

raids of two, three, or four thousand men forming a single party. This raiding is done in the cold weather. As they are an independent tribe they are merely requested to confine their pastimes within their own limits, and not to trespass on British territory as formerly. Infraction of this rule caused the Lushai Campaign of 1870-1. Gasban, the village I had passed through on the Chengree, had been cut up by the Kookies about 1852, but, being well within protected limits, was now flourishing again. At Jadoogapara (about 20 miles above where Sanderson struck the Chengree) "it is said, once on a time, stood a large 'jhuma' settlement, till one fine morning a sudden yell on all sides at daybreak announced the Kookies, and no one escaped to tell the tale. I could not see a trace of the village; but the structures of the hill people are not of a very permanent order."

So much for the Kookies at this period. The subsequent history of this corner of India will show that other severe lessons had to be dealt out to them before they realised what the Pax Britannica really meant.

The "kheddah" into which the surrounded elephants were to be driven was situated two miles from Jadoogapara, and Sanderson thus describes it: "The 'kheddah,' or stockade, was constructed of a circle of stout uprights 12 feet high, consisting of the toughest poles and young trees of the best timber trees placed so close together that the hand could scarcely be introduced between them, and well backed with forked uprights and cross-beams, the whole being lashed together with strips of cane. The guiding wings were of similar construction ...; the whole was concealed in thick forest on an elephant run, and the new woodwork was screened with cane leaves." Thirty-seven elephants were trapped in this stockade, and therefore the number of fine trees which were sacrificed to construct it can be estimated. Three other similar stockades were constructed during this trip. As late as 1900 the Kheddah Department visited the Hill Tracts whilst the writer held charge of the Forest Division, and similar destructive methods of trapping elephants were still in force. This was, it is believed, their last visit to the region, their operations being subsequently transferred to Burma till the Department, for which there was no longer any use and which threatened to exterminate the Indian elephant, was finally disbanded. It was a barbarous institution, for the

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