TIGERLAND 



we encountered, for as we penetrated deeper into the 

 forest we found the trees not only larger but standing too 

 close to each other to leave sufficient space for our elephants 

 to pass, consequently we had to make long detours often 

 of several hundred yards before we came upon a navigable 

 passage and even then had to cut away the creepers to get 

 through. 



***** 



To those who have never journeyed through the heart 

 of an Indian forest it would be difficult to convey in 

 ordinary language anything approaching an accurate idea 

 of the situation or of the feelings of the traveller who has 

 ventured to undertake the journey, when he finds himself 

 suddenly cut off from the world and surrounded by a 

 seemingly impenetrable w T all of trees and undergrowth so 

 dense as to conceal all but the higher branches of the 

 latter. 



But this is not all, for to these conditions must be added 

 the gloomy, death-like silence which pervades all Indian 

 jungles in the daytime, when even the beasts that prowl 

 by night are hushed in tired sleep, and lastly, but no less 

 awe-inspiring, an almost night-like darkness, for the sun, 

 however brightly shining, can barely pierce the canopy of 

 foliage overhead. 



***** 



Such, then, was the position we had been in for six long 

 weary hours of arduous travel when we suddenly emerged 

 into the light and found ourselves on the verge of a savanna 

 extending for several hundred yards in front of us and to 

 the distant line of trees where the forest recommenced. 



The savannas, as they are termed, are usually below 

 the level of the forest, hence during the rains resemble 

 swampy, marsh land, producing a luxuriant growth of a 

 reedy kind of grass often twelve to fifteen feet in height, 

 and a favourite resort for the larger beasts of the forest, 

 such as the rhinoceros, sambbur, and other kind of deer, 

 which during the cold, dry season lie up there in the day- 

 time probably because they find it warmer than in the 

 heavier jungle. 



In most of the large forests, there are usually two or 

 106 



