AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 441 



the explorer ; and the Government have taken the 

 proper course in seeing that all newly-appointed forest 

 officers shall in future go through a course of instruction 

 in the advanced schools of forestry in Germany and 

 France. The danger is lest a too purely professional 

 view of forest questions be allowed to exclude considera- 

 tions bearing powerfully on the general economy of the 

 masses of the people, and particularly of the hill tribes ; 

 and lest cut-and-dried theories, based on the example of 

 moist temperate regions, be applied without sufficient 

 caution to the very different conditions of tropical 

 forests. For example, one of the practices of Conti- 

 nental forestry, the working of forests in blocks by 

 rotation, though probably quite inapplicable to a hot 

 country, where stripping the soil of all the trees 

 at once converts it into an arid desert, is still aimed at 

 in our Indian forests, and is the cause of much, and 

 I believe wasteful, expenditure of money. Many 

 important matters can even now be dealt with only in a 

 tentative manner ; and the wisdom of the administrator 

 must always be joined to the technical skill of the 

 forester to secure the best results. 



My narrative is now done, having carried the reader 

 over every portion of these Central Highlands, and even 

 taken a step with him below their eastern termination. 

 In the course of our rambles he has made the acquaint- 

 ance of every wild animal he is likely to meet with 

 in the forests ; and it only remains for me to offer 

 a few hints to the traveller or sportsman who may con- 

 template an excursion in these regions. Few men would 

 probably come to India merely to shoot over this central 

 wilderness. But as a field for general travel, and even as 

 a sporting ground, India is rapidly coming into favour 

 among the wandering section of Englishmen. I need 



