JUNGLES OF BENGAL DUARS AND ASSAM 127 



by invitation of the Ruler or Durbar. To the east the 

 Naga and Manipur Jungles of Eastern Assam stretch 

 across the Chindwin River into the extensive, almost 

 illimitable jungles of Upper Burma and still further east 

 into Chinese Yunnan. South in the western area the great 

 jungles are bounded by the cultivated plains, whilst in 

 their eastern sections they stretch, as we have already seen 

 in a previous chapter, southwards through the rough table- 

 land of the Khasia and Garo Hills and the Lushai Hills 

 into the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Chittagong Collectorate, 

 and still further east, south of Manipur, through the Chin 

 Hills into the Arakan Hill Tracts to Akyab on the sea- 

 coast. On the north this extensive tract of country is 

 bounded by the great chain of the Eastern Himalaya, 

 Bhutan and the outlying parts of Tibet, rising more or less 

 steeply out of the plains, and forming a natural barrier to 

 the further extension of the fauna of the region in that 

 direction. The great Brahmaputra, that highway of Assam, 

 drains north-eastern Assam as its great tributary, the 

 Megna, does the south, the former eventually joining the 

 Ganges. The two rivers best known to the sportsman are the 

 Tista on the west, coming from Sikkim and flowing down the 

 beautiful Tista Valley, and the Monas on the eastern borders 

 of Assam, famed for its mahseer fishing. The tract of 

 country under consideration is for the greater part under 

 forests, in the form of fine primeval high forest of valu- 

 able timber trees and other soft-wooded species of all ages 

 and in great variety, varied by extensive tracts covered 

 by bamboos, cane brakes, grasses, or scrub jungle. 



The whole of this area is not under the management of the 

 Indian Forest Department. We have seen that Nepal is an 

 independent State, to give one exception. So is Bhutan to 

 the east of Nepal. But a vast tract of the area above 

 roughly enumerated is under the charge of the Department, 

 either in the form of Reserves, Protected, or Unclassed 

 Forests. Perhaps nowhere in India is to be found so large 

 an extent of practically conterminous heavy jungle — jungles 

 capable of forming a permanent sanctuary to the larger and 

 shier, as equally to some of the smaller and rarer forms of 

 zoological life and to forms which are at present unknown 

 to science. Nowhere throughout the Indian Empire is the 

 zoological life of greater interest to the scientist, and in no 

 other part would the institution of great permanent sane- 



