1884.] FORESTRY IN BRITISH BURMA. 407 



tracts as remain under forest and of sufficient extent, and to declare 

 them village forests to be set apart for the benefit of certain defined 

 village communities. 



Final demarcation of reserves was carried on in the Prome, Ran- 

 goon, and Toungoo divisions. In the Prome division the work was 

 completed throughout the outer boundaries ; but the limits of the 

 recently settled Karen areas within the reserves had still to be per- 

 manently marked. In the Rangoon division the demarcation of the 

 Zamayi reserves was in hand, but the work was greatly retarded by a 

 man-eating tiger dispersing the Karen coolies in March, The Karen 

 oracle had to be consulted, and this only sanctioned a further supply 

 of labour on the 28th of April. 



In the Hantbawaddy and Tharawaddy districts the survey of forty- 

 two square miles was completed on the scale of four inches =one mile 

 and twenty-five square miles of advance work. Some reserves were 

 surveyed and mapped out on the sixteen-inch scale, and forty-two 

 square miles were prepared for survey. The cost, exclusive of super- 

 vision, of the survey in Tharawaddy was 100 rupees per mile for the 

 twenty-five miles of advance work, and 447 rupees per square mile 

 for the forty-two square miles completed. In the other district the 

 Forest Department bore only a share of the cost of surveys. 



The surveying party suffered very much from dysentery and 

 malarious fever, partial and in some cases total blindness, a most 

 mahgnant form of itch, ulcers and scurvy. Sickness was the most 

 serious oljstacle to be contended against. Out of a mean strength of 

 364 khalassies twenty-six died, a large number had to be invalided, and 

 fully forty per cent, of the menial establishment were prostrated ; that 

 is, at no period of the field season were there more than 200 effective 

 men. The native surveyors suffered more or less, and the hospital 

 assistant was unable to leave his bed for six weeks or two months. 

 Food of every description had to be sent up on elephants a distance 

 of not less than twenty-five miles, not a particle being obtainable on 

 the spot. When it is considered that 400 men had to be provided 

 with the commonest necessaries of life, some idea may be formed of 

 the heavy responsibility which the arrangements alone imposed, 

 since the slightest hitch would have been disastrous. 



The operations of the detail surveyors were carried on chiefly in 

 the Thonze reserve. The features are of an intricate nature, con- 

 sisting of a few high ridges, the interlying valleys being cut up by 

 innumerable watercourses, which are generally so wide, deep, and 

 thickly wooded that it is a most difficult matter for the surveyor to 

 distinguish between the large and small ones, and therefore he has 

 generally to follow up the courses of all in order that important 



