216 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



learn to do as European nations do, convert large trees 

 to smaller scantlings by the saw, as it is an undoubted 

 fact that forests yield a larger aggregate supply of 

 timber when the trees are allowed to mature. The 

 argument is one of a sort too readily applied to many 

 Indian subjects. Theoretically it is true enough, and in 

 the distant future it may be realised. But in the 

 meantime the people have not the capital wherewith to 

 do it, even if the large timber were growing ready for 

 them, which it is not. 



Of other trees than teak these forests produce a 

 great variety, some producing highly ornamental woods 

 for fancy purposes, other useful in the arts, and a 

 good many, when fully matured and seasoned, capable 

 of almost supplanting teak for ordinary building purposes. 

 The useful sorts, however, on the whole, bear a very low 

 proportion to the great mass for which no general 

 use has as yet been found. Eound the settlements the 

 valuable sorts have mostly been exterminated ; and 

 such parts as are not actually under tillage are covered 

 with a scrub composed of such thorny species as Acacia 

 Arahica, A. catechu, Zizyphus Jujuha, and others. 

 It is remarkable, I think, how the thorny species, 

 which are the best armed to resist destruction, have 

 thus won the race for life in such tracts. 



Vast areas, again, do not produce, and do not seem 

 to be capable of producing, any species but such as are, 

 from the softness of their timber, almost useless to the 

 carpenter. A typical example of such a tract is found 

 in the upper valley of the Tilpti river, a river which 

 forms so good an example of the streams of this region 

 as to be worthy of some description. Rising among the 

 western spurs of the Miihadeo range, it flows for a short 



