THE BORI FOREST 299 



into the hills, where higher ground and better air and 

 quinine soon chased headaches and shivers and collapse 

 away. The road lay by a winding route, ever mounting 

 higher through miles of jungle-clad hills, only a bridle- 

 track where elephants, horses, and camels could just get 

 along. Gangs of coolies were at work repairing the 

 damage done by the rains and widening the road. A 

 camp was chosen at a long ago deserted village. Many 

 such exist in all parts of India as well as in the poems of 

 great writers. Here were the old terraced fields all grown 

 over with dense thicket, where houses once stood. Wild 

 orange and citron trees shed their golden fruit on the 

 ground unheeded. The clumps of great wide-leaved 

 bananas were choked by thorny trees and tangled brush- 

 wood. A grove of mango-trees left crowded together 

 had grown to an immense height, with bare, tall stems, 

 and a date-palm tree, with slender stalk fully 120 feet 

 high, overtopped them all. There were planters of 

 orchards in those days who had some intelligence above 

 cutting down and selling, or spoiling earth's treasures 

 for the sordid gain which is the high aim of modem 

 industry. 



The fields which were once ploughed were gone back 

 into jungle and overgrown with grass 10 feet high, the 

 lurking place of tigers and leopards. The neatly built 

 well, whose clear water issued from the mountain through 

 a carved stone mouth, still supplied the thirsty traveller ; 

 but the villagers were not there, and all that remained 

 of the houses were some moss and fern covered stone 

 walls, clasped by a network of pipal roots and shaded 

 by giant fig-trees. The glory of the village was an 

 immense banian-tree, standing alone and covering half 

 an acre of level ground. This great tree, with a stem 

 50 feet in girth, continued to flourish and spread, with a 



