234 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
melancholy records, bushes hung with scraps of 
many coloured cloths, that serve to mark, not so 
much the death of a companion, as votive offerings 
from the survivors. 
It is a pity that this hard-working people should 
be also such adepts at illicit timber-trading. At 
that time the forest had practically been depleted 
of mature timber by-raiders from hundreds of boats 
that lay secretly up the innumerable creeks, and hid 
their booty under a covering of innocent fuel and 
palm-leaves; while the forest subordinates, sitting 
at the receipt of custom, grew rich on their share 
of the spoil. To check the trade in timber and fuel 
of a district where the people depend for their liveli- 
hood to a great extent on the forest, and on whom 
also depended in a great measure the supply of these 
commodities to the capital of India, was a delicate 
task, and its accomplishment reflects credit on those 
that carried it to completion. To-day there are few 
thieves, because the risk of detection is too great, 
and perhaps fewer wealthy subordinates, because a 
source of income has been removed ; the fellings are 
confined to one area, and their produce leaves the 
forest marked and paid for; the registered and 
numbered boats have fixed trade routes, and the 
Forest Officers are provided with more comforts and 
better pay in their lonely and arduous lives. 
The Sundarbans serve as. watering-places to the 
residents of Calcutta, but to explore them a private 
launch is a necessity ; it is impossible to do so from 
a passenger steamer running to fixed times. From 
such a launch all the beauties of the misty sunrise 
and of the vivid sunsets can be enjoyed, and a run 
