58 THE LAND OF THE LION 



actually working them. Everything is tied up, no one 

 is benefited or satisfied. 



These forests are their own insurance agents against fire. 

 Try as you may, you cannot burn them down. No casual 

 farmer living on their edges, even if he take what his house 

 and farm need from their wealth, can do them any harm. 

 And, till a special branch line is built, and great outlay 

 undertaken, of course no real attack can be made on the 

 lumber. So long, therefore, as reasonable conditions 

 are attached to any farms granted, the timber is pretty safe. 

 But the concession of the Mau forest or a great part of it, 

 does serious harm in another way. 



Every foot of the road from Londiani to the river that 

 bounds this region, and is the actual dividing line between 

 it and Sergoit plain, a distance of seventy miles 

 runs through the "concession" the land has been 

 granted as well as the wood, land fine as can be seen. 

 And so, year after year, enviously and angrily, the would-be 

 settler tramps behind his wagon those seventy long miles> 

 cursing a system of favouritism, which forces him to move 

 mile after mile farther away from the railroad and the 

 market, while here are uncounted farms, wooded, sheltered, 

 healthy, nearer home, occupied by no one, yet denied to him. 

 He, ready to work and willing to pay, reasonably enough 

 asks: "Where are the signs of either work done, or pay 

 made to the Government, for this splendid demesne ?" 



The forest is very silent. Now and then is heard the 

 chattering call of the monkey, ensconced far above mother 

 earth, in his own upper sunny world of the tree tops, and 

 occasionally you notice a parrot or a pigeon. Beneath in 

 the gloom, the rich loam bears few game signs. Now 

 and then the rooting of the bush pig, or a very rare bush 

 buck slot that is all. The thing that impresses you as 

 you struggle through this new vegetable world for the first 

 time, is its stubborn obstructiveness. You are not only 



