CHAPTER V 
CONSERVATORS’ WORK 
In the spring of 1890 I had completed nearly sixteen 
and a half years’ service, of which, barring periods 
of leave, three-fourths of each year had been spent 
in pioneer work in forests that had not yet become 
fashionable ; and I had attained to the rank of a 
fourth-grade Deputy Conservator, whose pay was 
then Rs. 6,000 a year, a sum that at the present 
rate of exchange equals £400 sterling. It was then 
that I had the good fortune to be promoted to 
administrative rank, and was gazetted as Con- 
servator of Forests to the Central Circle of the 
United Provinces. The change was important to 
me in more ways than one. In the first place, I was 
able to give orders instead of receiving them, and 
this permitted the exercise of professional initiative; 
secondly, my salary was doubled, thus enabling me 
to live in more comfort and acquire better horses 
and better weapons, both rather necessaries than 
luxuries in the life I was called upon to lead; and, 
further, I was freed from the harassing executive 
work which, especially in the protection of the forest 
from fire, entailed incessant strain throughout the 
dry season. 
I confess that I was becoming weary of the 
111 
