28 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



of their charge. The mischief had been completed, and 

 most of the timber speculators had bolted from their 

 creditors, leaving their logs smoking in the forests, before 

 the formation of the Central Provinces, and ere the Forest 

 Department had entered on their labour of exploring 

 and arranging for the protection of what was still worth 

 looking after. Succeeding chapters will give some account 

 of such of these explorations as the writer was engaged 

 in, and of the penalties and pleasures that accompanied 

 the early investigations in these Central Indian forests. 



