238 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
land must be almost valueless if its best use is to 
supply unregulated grazing to inferior animals. 
At first in any country, when population is scarce, 
there are large areas available where half-wild herds 
may roam harmlessly; gradually their range is 
restricted, and eventually a larger population find a 
more remunerative use for the land, while more 
careful breeding and stall-feeding provide a better 
return from the cattle. India is in the middle stage 
of restriction of area; the best breeds, which it 
is desired to maintain pure, are even now no longer 
forest-fed, and Nature intervenes to wipe out by 
scarcity and pestilence millions of the others whose 
chief value is the supply of hides of a vastly inferior 
description, and bones that serve for manure. In 
times of scarcity the forests are indeed thrown open 
for the grazing of these miserable beasts, but only 
those in the neighbourhood benefit; for how shall 
the others, already weakened by hunger, complete 
the march through a desert country, and how recruit 
their strength on the coarse grasses the forest 
provides? It will be well when the third stage of 
cattle-breeding is reached, when the Indian peasant 
devotes his attention to the well-being of a few 
animals, and attempts to provide for them within 
the homestead: for now in famine times he tries to 
save all, and loses all; while even the efforts made 
by the Government to supply fodder are often 
rendered futile by the vast numbers of animals it is 
attempted to save. 
Below Darjeeling extends the Tarai, and the tea- 
gardens of the hills look down on those of the 
plains, The country is one of watercourses, which 
