INTRODUCTOKY 15 



the detailed examination and conservation of the timber- 

 bearing tracts. An of&cer^ who had already interested 

 himself in the question, and had travelled extensively in 

 these regions, and who was admirably fitted for the task 

 by physical qualities, and the possession of that faculty 

 of observation which is not to be attained by the labours 

 of the study, was selected as superintendent of the new 

 department. During the five succeeding years several 

 officers, quorum anus fui, were unremittingly employed 

 in the exploration of the 36,000 square miles which may 

 be taken to be the area of the central hills, besides doing 

 much to examine an almost equally extensive tract of 

 low-lying forest in the south of the province. In later 

 years the regular civil officers of the district, those em- 

 ployed in the land revenue settlement, surveyors, mis- 

 sionaries, and many others, have traversed many parts 

 of these mountains; and a great mass of information 

 respecting their physical character and inhabitants has 

 been accumulated, which, although of very unequal value, 

 is yet a mine of useful ore from which much good metal 

 may be extracted. Much of this has already been printed 

 in the form of official Reports; and the cream of it has 

 been abstracted into a Gazetteer of the Central Provinces, 

 the Introduction to which, from the pen of Mr. Grant, 

 late Secretary to the Chief Commissioner, is a r6sum6 of 

 the history of the province, admirable for its conciseness 

 and research. Good maps of all but the remotest tracts 

 have also now been made available; and statistical in- 

 formation of all sorts is annually prepared with much care 

 and made public by the Government. 



My design, then, in thus venturing before the public, 

 is not that of attempting to rival these most complete 

 official documents in accuracy or extent of information, 

 but rather to present, in a more jiopular and accessible 

 form, the lighter and more picturesque aspects of a 

 country in which an increasingly large section of our 

 countrymen take an interest. Though most of what I 

 shall have to say is founded on, or corroborated by my 



^ Captain G. F. Pearson, of the Madras Army, now Conservator in 

 the N.W. Provinces. 



