MOSTLY ABOUT BEARS 159 



importance. Salt is a bulky article, and illicit 

 salt, transported across country by carts, pack- 

 animals or porters, cannot compete with licit 

 salt, transported by water or railway, except in 

 the immediate vicinity of the place of production. 

 Organised smuggling from the recognised salt- 

 works must of course be prevented, but this is 

 not a difficult matter. If licit salt is good, and is 

 reasonably cheap, none but the poorest of the 

 population will use inferior illicit salt ; and, if 

 some poor people do use inferior illicit salt, 

 made or spontaneously produced in the vicinity 

 of their houses, the revenue of the Government 

 will not appreciably suffer. Vigorous preventive 

 measures in such cases merely emphasise the 

 objectionable side of the salt duty, and trans- 

 gressors of the salt laws who are in poor circum- 

 stances should be very leniently treated. 



These views unfortunately did not commend 

 themselves to the Government of India ; and it 

 has been a great satisfaction to me to have had 

 an opportunity of proving their correctness in 

 China. At different times, in bygone years, 

 much consideration was given by able men in 

 India to the question of the salt duty, but in 

 recent years it has not been sufficiently recognised 

 that a successful administration of the salt 

 revenue requires some training and intelligence. 



But all this is a digression. In the course of 

 my tour through Kashmir I had two days' bear- 

 driving in the Achibal reserved forest and the 

 woods in the vicinity. The forest was cut into 

 rides, and, as the beaters came through the 

 strips of cover, any bears or other animals which 



