BACK IN THE JUNGLES AGAIN 191 



pened in the neighbourhood of all the large cantonments in 

 India. It is what has happened largely also in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Gurkha cantonments occupied by regiments 

 who do not move their headquarters. These Gurkha 

 regiments or battalions are situated on the outer spurs 

 of the Himalayan range from the banks of the Sarda on 

 the frontier of Nepal to the banks of the Indus. They 

 number some fifteen thousand men/ all keen shikaris. 

 Their chief opportunities of private shikar, i.e. as opposed 

 to the occasions when they are out with their officers when 

 their part is not the killing part, is during the monsoon 

 months. During these months the sahib does not go out 

 into the jungles which are very malarious. Not so the 

 Gurkhas. This is their opportunity. From June to Septem- 

 ber it is comparatively easy to obtain leave, and a party of 

 ten to twenty men proceeded to a jungle and syste- 

 matically beat it, slaying everything that got up in front 

 and that could be hit. This sort of thing took place year 

 after year, in addition to the numbers of animals killed 

 from machans on the outskirts of the forest 

 by a sportsman who was out on his own t ^-^ ,- w 

 and could not tackle the game in any other y^:f ■^■^Jj 

 way. There can be little doubt that the 

 Gurkhas decimated the animals in the neigh- 

 bourhood of their cantonments, and this 

 neighbourhood may be taken to be a radius 

 of some thirty miles or more. It was most 

 difficult to see how it could be stopped. The 

 men had the permission from Government. 

 It was one of the guarantees upon which 

 they were enlisted in Nepal. Some of the 

 finest shooting-grounds on the five hundred miles of country 

 between the Sarda and Indus have been entirely ruined by 

 this so-called shikar, and the sufferers are not only the 

 Gurkha rank and file themselves, but their officers and the 

 civil officers of the stations situated along this extensive 

 line. 



In many cases nothing but closure and the creation of 

 considerable game sanctuaries will enable portions of these 

 fine forests to become rehabitated to some extent. They 

 are unlikely ever to form the shooting-grounds they once 

 were. Nor will the old free shooting of the forest be seen 



^ This was written before the Great War. — E. P, S, 



