18 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
officials of the Province were all known to each 
other, and hospitality was the custom of the day. 
The “dak-bungalow,” or travellers’ rest-house, at the 
headquarters station of the district would not have 
paid its way had it been dependent on the visits of 
Government officials, who went as a matter of course 
to the houses of their colleagues. The military out- 
post of Sitapur, held then by Queen’s troops and 
native cavalry, was reached by posting along the 
now nearly deserted highway. The traveller was 
offered a police escort, and his refusal was committed 
to writing, for the justification of the authorities in 
case of outrage: for as a rule one preferred to run 
the risk of robbery-under-arms to loading the 
wretchedly horsed box-on-wheels in which one 
travelled with the weight of two policemen, who 
might perhaps be the friends or relatives of the 
dacoits; but one went armed with a serviceable 
revolver. Northwards from Sitapur, Kheri lay 
twenty-eight miles away, and it took seven hours to 
reach it in a dooli; beyond was the unknown, and 
again the dooli, with its band of “ kahars” of 
“banghiwdlas,” and of “masdlchis,” was requisi- 
tioned to bear the traveller through the misty night, 
through jungle and grass, across the great Sarda 
River, and so on to the Government forests on the 
confines of Nepal. 
Once arrived, the forester would probably not see 
a white face—save occasionally that of a fellow- 
officer—until the return to headquarters eight 
months later through the monsoon floods, unless 
happily he encountered a shooting-party on its way 
to Nepal, or persuaded some friends to aid for a 
