104 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



pipe and waits till the resultant crop ripens, when he again 

 gets to work and cuts it over. He may repeat the operation 

 the following year and even a third year. By this time a 

 dense weed growth will be making its appearance, entailing 

 more work than our jhumer has any stomach for, and so 

 in order not to have to fight against that he moves on to 

 a fresh piece of forest. The procedure results in a frightful 

 waste of fine forest, the product of hundreds of years, which 

 is replaced by a tangle of more or less valueless soft woods 

 and bamboos. But the numbers of the various families 

 practising this patriarchal form of existence were few, and 

 as I have said probably had little influence on the game. On 

 the other hand it was extremely difficult for the European 

 sportsman to get at the game in these forests. There were 

 no roads, it was difficult to collect coolies to carry one's 

 camp paraphernalia even if one was willing to travel with 

 the lightest kit. No food of any kind could be bought for 

 oneself or servants and so all had to be carried with the 

 party, and lastly the country, an intricate mass of hills 

 densely clothed with jungle, bamboo, cane, long grass and 

 high overhead cover with only narrow game paths to move 

 along, offered almost insuperable difficulties to the sports- 

 man. We tried our best, those of us who were up in that 

 part of the world at this period and were keen enough to 

 face the inevitable discomforts and hard life entailed, 

 with but meagre results, however. The country forms a fine 

 animal sanctuary, so long, and only so long, as the native 

 inhabitants remain as sparse as at present and do not get 

 hold of the modern sporting rifle. Once they do these jungles 

 will follow the ones in the Chittagong District to the south. 

 But that we may hope is a long time ahead. 



I have said that the Chittagong Collectorate areas are 

 practically without life so far as game goes. But this only 

 applies to the isolated blocks of jungle. Some of the forests 

 are in direct communication with the great tracts of jungle 

 to the north, forest-clad spurs running right down to the 

 seaboard. These spurs are constantly supplied from the 

 north and at the time I am writing of contained numerous 

 sambhar, barking deer, pig, and leopard and more rarely 

 tiger and, of course, numbers of the smaller carnivora. 

 On these hills areas of a tall strong grass termed "sunn" 

 occur in parts. The areas covered with this grass, called 

 " sunnkholas," are of considerable value and are leased for a 



