JUNGLE-FIRES. 11 



M'iiid. Here Lurning leaves and liot aslies are cariied far ahead of the main 

 fire, and a fresh blaze starts up at once where they fall. I do not think 

 jungle-fires ever travel four miles in an liour. The devouring element licks 

 up all before it in some places with wonderful rapidity, but it seldom pro- 

 ceeds far without a check. Wild animals retreat before conflagrations ; but 

 many, as for instance herds of elephants encumbered with young, could not 

 always escape if the fires travelled at any great rate. I have never known 

 any animals, except a few young sambur, too young to walk far, to be 

 caught in the fire ; but jungle-people have been burnt on occasions. This 

 has always occurred through their not heeding the danger, and staying to 

 search for some near asylum, instead of at once starting for a known place 

 of safety. Three men of a village near my camp in the Billiga-rungun 

 hiUs, who were cutting bamboos, were burnt in this way, through not liking 

 to leave their work further than the shelter of a ravine near, which proved 

 insufficient to protect them from the wave of flame and smoke that passed 

 over them. 



Elephants, bison, &c., do not retreat straight before a fire, but to one 

 side or the other. The fires seldom form a long front, so this outflanking 

 movement readily succeeds. At tlie first distant crackle, or smell of smoke, 

 wild animals at once retire. Fires are much less dangerous than is sup- 

 posed if anything like prompt means are taken to effect a retreat. The 

 jungle-people secure their houses by cutting some of the grass round, and 

 firing it early in the season, before it is very dry. This stops the onward 

 rush of the larger fires later on. Fires burn much more fiercely during the 

 day than at night, as there is usually more wind, and everything is dry and 

 brittle ; whilst at night the heavy dews have a marked effect on the progress 

 of the burning through making the grass damp ahead. The conflagrations 

 are only fierce and general for one month, usually March ; they begin in 

 January. 



A good deal is said in connection with forestry in India regarding the 

 destructiveness of the annual fires to young trees, and attempts are con- 

 stantly made, but rarely succeed, to exclude fires from reserved Government 

 forests. It is, perhaps, doubtful whether they are so destructive as is 

 believed, and whether the young plants of teak and other trees would 

 flourish well if constantly choked and overshaded by undergrowth. At 

 any rate there are splendid forests where, though fires have raged annually 

 from time immemorial, the timber is as close as the ground can support it. 

 The grass is not so high or thick under shade as in open ground, and as 

 artificial teak nurseries are usually made in land from which the timber has 

 been removed, and where, in consequence, grass grows apace, the fires are 



