THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



CHAPTER I 



FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE HIMALAYAN FOREST 



A LINE of deep red along the eastern horizon was the 

 first signal of dawn, after a hot night of pitchy blackness. 

 The morning of October i6, 1861, was breaking. The 

 dust of an unmetalled road, with the dense smoke of flaring 

 torches, had filled the air all night long and made it 

 unbreathable. The monotonous ' Huh, huh ! huh, huh !' 

 of the black and perspiring kahars, or dooly-bearers, as 

 they struggled along under the weight of a primitive 

 apparatus, made of canvas stretched on a rough frame- 

 work, and called a ' dooly,' had made the night appear 

 everlasting. There had never been a chance of five 

 minutes' consecutive sleep for the weary traveller reclining 

 within. The long bamboo on which the vehicle hung, 

 borne on the shoulders of four men, while four more ran 

 beside, taking shift every five minutes, following the 

 masalchi, or torch-bearer, swung horribly from the trotting 

 motion of the bearers. The suffering traveller who was 

 borne along on that sultry night through the Terai, by 

 the broad straight road leading from Bareilly to the foot 

 of the Himalayan hills, would occasionally express his 

 dissatisfaction at the swinging motion by plaintive com- 



I 



