20 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
were recognized as being amongst the most valuable 
of Upper India; they were composed almost entirely 
of Shorea robusta, or “sal,” with a mixture of Ter- 
minalia tomentosa, or “sain,” and other valuable 
species standing on the high alluvial land. Lower 
down, the “Shisham” and the “Khair” formed 
pure forests, water-sown by the floods sent down 
from the Nepal hills. 
The whole area had been devastated by fire and 
by unregulated felling. The forest was burnt over 
every year by the Thdrus to clear the undergrowth 
for hunting, and by the graziers to obtain a crop of 
young grass ; while anyone might in former days have 
felled half a dozen trees of six-foot girth for a rupee, 
and have selected one of the best for removal without 
further payment. The best had thus disappeared, 
and the forest was full of fallen timber and of trees 
tapped either for the extraction of resin or to verify 
their soundness. Beyond a two-roomed shanty at 
Duduaghat, now a station on the railway, there 
were no houses in the forest, and tents were the 
only shelter against the frosts of winter, the heats 
of summer, and the breaking of the monsoon. Once 
a week a runner arrived from headquarters with 
‘news from the outer world and with a small stock 
| of its luxuries; a bullock-cart took three weeks or 
‘more to reach the nearest railway-line, and to return 
with a load of the more bulky necessaries of life. 
Within the forest and on its borders game literally 
| swarmed. The most common was the spotted-deer, 
and of these there were often to be seen herds of 
hundreds on the open plains in the morning or even- 
ing. Shooting did not appear either to diminish 
