6 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



the loose stones and twined round the ankles in a most 

 aggravating manner. This grass, known as " bhabar " in 

 Northern India, is a valuable forest product as a coarse 

 paper is made from it. 



As the upper slopes of the hill were left behind the forest 

 grew thicker, the trees became taller, with finer boles and 

 larger crowns, and clumps of bamboos made their appear- 

 ance. 



The bison had proceeded slowly, feeding as he moved along, 

 and the tracks trended eastwards, dropped into a valley, 

 and wandered down the banks of the stream, eventually 

 emerging on to a clearing covered with tall grass. This 

 was the site of a deserted village. For some years several 

 families had settled here, cleared off the forest for a few 

 hundred acres or so, built themselves the usual mud- 

 walled thatched huts, and cultivated a paddy crop on the 

 cleared ground. It was a precarious existence and almost 



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doomed from the first to failure. For the contest between 

 the Forest and its inhabitants and man was too unequal. 

 As soon as the crops commenced to show above ground, the 

 herbivorous jungle folk, from the elephant downwards, 

 arrived at night, and even by day in these secluded regions, 

 and took toll. Little recked they of the puny efforts of 

 the owners to drive them away. The elephants soon 

 learnt that the tremendous noise made by the one or two 

 old matchlocks in the possession of the jungle men was 

 harmless ; and occasionally if more than usually worried, or 

 from one cause or another short of temper, would charge 

 the frail staging, or machan as it is called, on which the 

 would-be protectors of the crops sat and scatter it to the 

 winds, probably killing the occupier. The never-ending 

 fight against the encroachments of the neighbouring jungle 

 and weed growth, combined with the deadly malaria, 

 resulted in a life of great strenuousness. The grim con- 



