THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 167 



The complement to this overhauling of the excise 

 law was the introduction of our system of forest conser- 

 vation. So large a subject, regarding which so little 

 knowledge existed, could not be expected to be dealt 

 with in an entirely satisfactory manner all at once. 

 Some mistakes were made, the chief of such being to 

 attempt too much on a sudden, and with insufficient 

 means. The manao-ement of all our immense tracts of 

 waste was thrown upon one or two officers, who had 

 not yet even explored the country, and had nothing 

 besides to guide them, and who were expected to 

 administer a code of rules in detail, throughout this 

 area, which was afterwards found to be much too strict, 

 and to bear very hardly on the people. It could not be 

 done ; and things came, ere long, to a dead lock, till 

 solved by the rules themselves passing into a dead 

 letter. Presently the proper remedy was applied, by 

 reserving the most promising forests to be directly 

 managed by the special Forest Department, while the 

 greater portion was left to be looked after by the 

 ordinary civil officers. Improved experience has still 

 further improved the system ; but the main features of 

 it were struck out as early as 1864. Restrictions on the 

 method of felling timber were imposed, and a fixed 

 timber-duty levied. These measures, if in some cases 

 not unopen to exception, at least had the effect of 

 inducing a more economical system of working the 

 forests. The aborigines still furnish the labour in the 

 forests, and, being paid in coin at the regular market 

 value of their work, are enabled to profit by whatever 

 they can earn. For some time the breaking up of the 

 Kular system left a want of private agency in the timber 

 trade ; and the Forest Department itself had to step in 



