278 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
profusely in the Province itself. The large area of 
evergreen forest is also not worked for the valuable 
timber it holds, and it was only in the district of 
Goalpara that forest commercial activity appeared 
to be developing; here the fellings of ‘‘sdl,” the 
tramways, and the roads, all presented a forecast of 
what might later on be imitated in other parts of 
the Province. . 
A visit was next paid to the Garo Hills, an 
isolated mountain district inhabited by a somewhat 
truculent tribe who practise shifting cultivation in 
the forests. No book on India, certainly none that 
refers to its forests, can be complete without refer- 
ence to this most wasteful form of cultivation, which 
has had, and to some extent is still having, so 
marked an influence on the country. Primitive 
man when struggling for existence in the virgin 
forests that once covered mountains and plains had 
but few weapons at his disposal ; his axe, his spear, 
and his bow, may have conferred some equality with 
the animal and vegetable life around him, but it 
was through fire that he asserted his superiority ; 
and to-day the record of his victory is visible on 
every hill in India. To fell the forest and to burn 
the timber, so that food grains might be sown broad- 
cast amongst the fertilizing ashes, to watch the 
seedlings flourish in the monsoon rains and the 
harvest ripen in the winter, was a method of culti- 
vation suitable to those who possessed neither agri- 
cultural implements nor domestic cattle, and who, 
to a great extent dependent like the monkeys on 
the wild products of the forest, like them were 
forced to roam as soon as local supplies were 
