INTRODUCTORY. 33 



were lying, and the great majority of them were burnt ! The 

 exact amount of the destruction can never be known. For 

 years afterwards, when exploring in the forests, we continued 

 to come on the charred remains of multitudes of these 

 slaughtered innocents, most of them being quite immature 

 and unfit for felling at any time. All that were worth any- 

 thing were saved by the Forest Department in after years, 

 and the value even of these amounted to many lacs of rupees. 

 They were not a hundredth part of those that were cut, which 

 should probably be reckoned by millions rather than thousands. 

 The injury done to the forests and to the country by this 

 most mistaken measure may never be recovered ; certainly it 

 cannot be recovered in less than two generations of the people's 

 life. Such was one of the most material results of the utter 

 ignorance of the administrative officers of that period regard- 

 ing everything connected with the wilder portions of their 

 charge. The mischief had been completed, and most of the 

 timber speculators had bolted from their creditors, leaving 

 their logs smoking in the forests, before the formation of the 

 Central Provinces, and ere the Forest Department had entered 

 on their labour of exploring and arranging for the protection 

 of what was still worth looking after. Succeeding chapters will 

 give some account of such of these explorations as the writer 

 was engaged in, and of the penalties and pleasures that accom- 

 panied the early investigations in these Central Indian forests. 



