CHAPTER VIII 
THE WORK OFTHE INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF 
FORESTS 
Wuen I arrived at Rangoon, on return from the 
Andamans, in the New Year of 1903, a voluminous 
mail awaited me. From the Government Gazette con- 
firming the appointment of a new Inspector-General 
of Forests, I passed through private correspondence 
till I reached a pile of oblong envelopes that denoted 
official communications ; and here I found a letter 
from the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, expressing a kindly 
welcome to the headquarters of the Government of 
India to officiate as Inspector-General until the 
retirement of the holder of that post. 
It would be idle to say that I had not weighed my 
claims to such preferment against those of my imme- 
diate predecessor, for in any service where promotion 
depends on vacancies, so long as human nature re- 
mains what it is, such considerations must find 
place ; but I had already put aside the question as 
settled, and my attention was at the time attracted 
to the vacant Directorship of the Forest School at 
Dehra Dun, an institution that had been engaged for 
nearly a quarter of a century in affording a technical 
education to Rangers and other subordinates of the 
Forest Service, a subject on which I, in common with 
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