INTRODUCTORY. 33 



Teak. It is also not so generally useful, particularly 

 for minor purposes, being hard to fell, of coarse grain, 

 and making very inferior charcoal. It, however, yields 

 a gum-resin valuable in commerce, and this has led to a 

 very great destruction of the Sal forests. Again, the 

 Sal tracts were very inaccessible from the populous 

 regions, the nearest point where any great supply could 

 be had for the railway being about a hundred miles, by 

 a bad land route. This distance has up to the present 

 time proved an insurmountable obstacle to the general 

 utilisation of the Sal timber on the railway works. The 

 supply of this timber is almost inexhaustible ; and a 

 stronger commentary on the commercial value of easy 

 communications could not be found than this, that the 

 railways have found it cheaper to import pine sleepers 

 from Norway, and ironwood from Australia, than to 

 carry the Sal timber growing within a hundred miles 

 of their line.* There is somethino; wrono^ where this is 

 the case ; and that something is the want of a good 

 road into the Sal regions from the railway at Jubbulpiir, 

 which road should have been made, for many other 

 reasons besides this, long ago. 



So much for the Sal forests. As regards the Teak, 

 the supply available for railway uses had already been 

 much reduced from the causes mentioned. A good deal 

 was, however, still left in the remoter forests, where 

 communications were not so easy ; and the forests, if 

 properly taken in hand, might have yielded a stead}^ 

 supply of large timber for many years. But unfortu- 

 nately the grave mistake was now made of announcing 



* I would not be understood to say that no Sal timber has been 

 used ; but its cost as conijvared with the imported material has been 

 greater. 



