FORESTS OF GORAKHPUR AND NEPAL TERAI 235 



times has to go at the stem of an inconvenient sapling with 

 his head and butt it down, shoving it over and then walk- 

 ing on it. This forest had had all the good timber long 

 since cut out of it by contractors, to whom it had been 

 let by Government to clear and make what they could. 



The present growth of young seedlings and shoots 

 from the old stools was the result of only a few years' 

 letting alone, so quickly is the vegetation renewed in a 

 climate like a hothouse, with a deep alluvial soil. North- 

 ward over the Nepal frontier the old timber has not been 

 cut, and the great straight stems of magnificent trees, 

 100 feet high and 6 feet in girth, are a sight to rejoice the 

 heart of a forester. The system since inaugurated of 

 thinning out the rubbish and small crooked and stunted 

 poles, which the native farmers had a demand for, and 

 leaving the healthy seedlings to grow, has worked well ; 

 and the Gorakhpur forest division is now one of the best 

 paying divisions in the North- West Provinces. 



Mounted on an elephant, in a comfortable howdah, with 

 maps and compass and lunch and a bottle of cold tea, and 

 a native guide on a pad elephant, we spend the entire 

 day forcing our way through the jungle, at times ghding 

 noiselessly through open glades where there is grass almost 

 3 feet high, the haunt of pigs and spotted and hog deer 

 {chital and para), while at times we cross, or follow the 

 course of, sunken ravines cut out of the deep alluvial and 

 sandy soil by streams from the hiUs northward. These 

 ravines are arched over by great branches of weird old 

 trees, jamun and saj and fig trees, whose roots make 

 fanciful interlacings. Creepers hang from tree to tree ; 

 troops of langur monkeys with hideous black faces and 

 white, long hair follow one another across the ravine, 

 bounding and swinging from rope to rope. It is difhcult 

 for an elephant to cross such ravines. He first tries the 



