THE KATIIIAWAR LION. 7 



do not remember to have ever before seen them mentioned in its 

 pages. The Gir forest, wliero only the lions are now found, covers 

 an area of about 1,500 S(|uare miles within the territories of the 

 Nawab of Junagadh. The greater part of it is covered with a Jungle 

 of stunted trees composed principally of dwarf teak, jambool, khi/.da, 

 khakra, kadaya, bor and babid with here and there, patches of bam- 

 boos, corinda anil other thorny bushes, and an isolated wadh or 

 banyan tree towering far above its neighbours. The country is 

 undulating with a few rugged hills in parts and much cut up by nalas, 

 with rough rocky beds, and their banks as often as not, lined with a 

 thick growth of jambool trees. The "Thran" river is the largest 

 stream in the forest, and in ordinary years it, with some of the larger 

 iialas, holds water all the year round in the deeper pools. Rock is 

 almost everywhere near the surface, which accounts for the stunted 

 crrowth of the trees and, I imaoine, the rank coarse vegetation 

 which covers the jungle during the monsoon, rendering it almost 

 impenetrable in parts, at that season of the year. Villages, if a collec- 

 tion of dilapidated huts surrounded by patches of cultivation can be 

 looked upon as such, are few and far between. Sasan, which is the 

 head quarters of the local Darbari official and where shooting camps 

 are as a rule pitched, may be looked upon as the capital of the Gir. 

 Xesses or hamlets, being collections of temporary huts, the dwelling 

 places of local herdsmen such as Rabaris, etc., are scattered in suitable 

 localities all over the forest. As might be expected a very bad type 

 of malarious fever prevails both in the Gir and in parts of the 

 Girnar; The greatest sufferers from it are of course the outside 

 cattle grazers who visit the forest only at certain seasons of the year, 

 with swarms of cattle for temporary grazing purposes, and more 

 especially so the cultivators and their families, who are from time to 

 time imported by the Darbar into the Gir whenever it is considered 

 advisable to establish a new village. In the village of Hasnapur, 

 comparatively recently established in the crater of the Girnar, almost 

 every soul I saw was suffering from enlargement of the spleen. A 

 former village on the same site had undoubtedly been wiped out by 

 the same disease. The site is admirably adapted for a game pre- 

 serve and I am surprised the Darbar does not reserve it for such a 

 purpose, instead of keeping up the village. The panthers have only 

 to be kept down ; Sambur, Pig, Ghntada (Four-horned Antelope) are 



