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FOREST AND STREAM. 
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[Aué, 7, 1884. 
Che Sportsman Conrist. 
HUNTING IN THE HIMALAYAS. 
Lights and Shades of an Indian Forester’s Life.—lI. 
CAN claim acquaintance with the Blac Danube and the 
_ busy Thames, The castellated banks of the fabled 
Rhine are more familiar to me than the banks of its western 
rival, the Hudson. The St. Lawrence, the classic Indus, 
fhe Sutlej and the Jumna have all their associations in my 
memory; but more deeply intertwined with my past, and re- 
called with fonder regret than all these, is the sacred Ganges, 
on whose bosom a hundred generations of brave warriors 
and fair women have glided calmly into the unknown land.* 
Yes, Love the Ganges. Notthe muddy, lukewarm, mighty 
river of the Bengal plains, but the foaming, rushing, roaring 
crystal Ganges from its source in the icy jaws of the ‘‘Cow’s 
mouth,” for the first. hundred miles of its career, during 
which it descends twelve thousand feet through some of the 
wildest, grandest scenery in nature, cutting in this short dis- 
tance every climatic belt from the eternal snows to the sub- 
tropical Sewaliks. 
I know the Ganges in mountain and plain, not merely 
with the casual acquaintance of the sportsman or traveler, 
lured to its banks in quest of game, but as one who held it, 
for the time being, as his own especial reserve—as the forest 
officer in charge of the forests which the Moslem and Hindoo 
axe had spared. 
The Sewalik belt, a strip of jungle’at the foot of the Hima- 
Jayas, is in British territory. From the point of view of 
the sportsman it is perhaps the nicest little shooting reserve 
in the empire. The elephant still roams wild through its 
solitudes, the tiger makes night musical to the sportsman’s 
ears with his roar. The spotted deer roam through the Sal 
forests In troops of a hundred or more; the reedy banks of 
the smaJ] streams are stocked wits hog deer and wild boar; 
the Gerao, and the Nyl-ehui, or blue cow, roam everywhere 
over forest and plain; the panther glides through the loag 
grass; and for small game, there is the hare, the peacock, the 
pheasant, the wild bantam, the black partridge; and, when 
fhe sportsman is satisfied with slaughter, or his larder is so 
well stocked that nothing but the chance of a tiger can lure 
him from his camp, he can put his rod together, select bis 
fly or his spoon, and casting for mahseer (one of the Sal- 
monide) in the clear, cold waters of the pebbly Ganges, may 
look for as fine sport as ever gladdened the heart of any 
devotee of the gentle craft. The mahseer generally runs 
from five to fifteen pounds, and fights gamely; but one occa- 
sionally hooks a fish of thirty pounds or over, the landing of 
which requires some patience. If you let a mahseer break 
away with your best gold spoon, the chances are that you 
have lost both fish and spoon. : 
I saw one exception in the case of a sporting doctor who 
got a week’s leave, and came down tome withrifle, gun and 
rod, fora few days’ sport. Letting a big fish break away 
with his sole gold spoon, he bent on another cast, got it en- 
tangled in the first and landed his fish; but he was a very ex-. 
ceptional sporisman—that doctor Isaw him take a steady 
aim at a gerao at a hundred yards, and the great stag 
bounded away unharmed, but advancing three hundred 
yards, | saw a hare indulging in his last struggles, with the 
doctor's express bullet in the back of his neck; this we all 
pronounced a very clever shot. The next day, having come 
unexpectedly on a couple of tigers on a ‘‘kill,” and disturbed 
them by our want of precaution, we began to beat the adjoin- 
ing long grass. I gota mowment’s glimpse of one at a hun- 
dred yards, and reserved my fire for a better chance, but the 
doctor had sighted the other, pushed on, and put him up at 
five yards in front of his elephant, fired at him onthe bound, 
and shouted wildly to me to come to his assistance to finish 
the wounded beast. I came, The doctor pointed out the 
clump of reeds in which the beast fell—it was about fifteen 
feet hish—and putting in my elephant, 1 commenced syste- 
matically, and laid the whole clump level with the ground. 
There was no sign of tiger, but the doctor’s shot never missed 
its mark; there lay his express bullet enveloped in the body 
of an otter, If that doctor had become a sportsman by voca- 
tion, what adventures might he not have to narrate! 
But we must away to the mountains, One cannot linger 
later than the 15th of April in the Sewaliks. The fever king 
then holds sway until the 15th of October; and I promised 
to take my readers with me for a summer’s tour of duty in 
the Himalayas. 
My starting point was always the camping ground two 
miles above Mussorie, on the confines of British territory, 
and nearly 6,000 feet above the plains right below. Here I 
arrived about the 20th of April, pitched my camp for the 
day, got in supplies of canned provisions from the ‘‘Europe 
shops,” ordered a score of coolies (forced laborers) for the first 
day’s march, got all my baggage packed in suitable packs, 
and the next morning at daylight, while I take my coffee in 
a folding chair, my tent is struck. Isee my little flock of 
twenty sheep, a mile off on the road, my trusty hill pony 
saddled and ready, a nearly thoroughbred filly, which 1 
intended to familiarize with mountain travel, in the hands 
of another groom waiting for the pony’s lead; and the coolies 
shouldering their several loads—camp kettles, chairs, bed- 
stead, portemanteaux, baskets of cooking pots, cases of stores, 
tents, poles, everything necessary for civilized life in the 
mountains; then came the office records and books, English 
and vernacular, the baboo, or head of the Bnglish office, the 
sheristidar, or chief of the vernacular office, and his clerks 
in spotless linen; the chuprasses or messengers with sword 
and }adge, carrying my shooting irons, the cook, washer- 
mun, valet, water-bearer, sweeper, and prominent among 
them all, the khansamangii, or chief butler, carrying a six- 
foot roasting spit, which was regarded by the mountaineers 
as so formidable and yet so exceptional a weapon that they 
were impressed with a high sense of its bearer’s importance, 
and always attached the ‘‘gii’ to the end of his title, 
Thus in irregular marching order we made the first day’s 
march, rising from 6,000 to 8,000 feet and covering about 
ten miles. Above the road was hardwood forest, principally 
oak, to the crests of the ranges, but below the road there 
were numerous oak clearings planted with potatoes. The 
yoad cut in the side of the hill was four or five feet wide, 
and being the first march out from Mussoorie, was kept in 
good order. Beyond this to the great suspension bridge 
at the contiuence of the Indian and Tartar branches of the 
Ganges, erected by my predecessor, the road was in charge 
of the Forest Department, the several villages along its 
course having, by arrangement with the Rajah from whom 
+]t is a pious custom of the Hindoos to consign the bodies of their 
dead to the Ganges, to secure them a safe passage to that better 
land supposed to be behind the veil. Those living at a distance burn 
their dead and convey their ashes to the sacred stream. _ 
the British leased the forests, agreed to contribute the neces- 
sary labor at the demand of the forest, officer or his subordi- 
nate. Beyond the bridge above mentioned there was no 
made road, but he who had nerve enongh to cross the bridge 
fearlessly, would hardly shrink from the perils beyond—it 
was a suspension bridge 300 feet long, 300 fect above the 
roaring, deafening torrent, and 8 feet wide. 
The second day’s march led down to the valley of the 
Ganges, there about four thousand five hundred feet high. On 
the third day’s march up the valley, the sun shone down as 
fiercely as on the plains. The valley was for the most part 
under cultivation, but on the overhanging ranges, dotted with 
a scanty crop of Scotch fir, the soil was too thin and parched 
to raise anything else. On the fifth day we crossed and 
recrossed the Ganges in the temperate belt, the road now 
running for a mile a few feet above the stream and again 
rising a couple of thousand feet above it to ayoid some 
otherwise impassable rugged points. Our suspension 
bridges here were six to eight feet wide, and although the 
fury and din of the raging torrent and the swaying of the 
bridges were trying to unaceustomed nerves, the ayerage 
traveler soon familiarized himself with them, and my filly 
“negotiated” them so unconcernedly, and had shown so much 
coolness and judgment in the bad spots, that 1 determined to 
put the saddle on her the next day, 
Starting early, with the syce, or groom, leading the way, 
and a chuprassee following with my rifle, we soon clambered 
the first hill and descended to 1 mountain stream then nearly 
dry, but its bed full of large boulders, waiting their turn to 
be rolled down to the Ganges, Here the syce attempted to 
take the filly’s head, but she did net like it, and I sent him 
ahead, leaying her to pick her own course, which she did as 
creditably as though ‘‘to the manner born,” Another ascent, 
Which left the Ganges nearly two thousand feet below, and 
the road swept on a dead level round the face of a mountain, 
following every indentation, so that, while you could fre- 
auently trace the road like a rope a mile beyond, you were 
unable to see it twenty feet ahead of you. Turning one of 
these sharp turns, I came suddenly on a boulder projecting 
some eighteen inches over the road, which was only four 
feet wide, and at this very spot the edge of the road had 
broken down more than a foot, leaying mea bare eighteen 
inches between the point of the broken boulder and the preci- 
pice. J was within two yards before I saw it, and tightened 
the rem. The filly reared up immediately, and plunged to 
follow her syce, who had passed the place heedlessly. There 
was no room for circus performances on that narrow plat- 
form, so I gave her her head, and, taking my foot from the 
stirrup, faced the diffieulty, She took the edge of the road; 
there was just room for her to pass. Lraised my knee above 
the projection, but the saddle caught it; she pressed forward; 
the next instant her hindlegs were over the precipice, 
her chest was on the edge of the road, and so was mine. 
sprang as she fell, got my hands on the edge of the road well 
clear of her, and as I clung there, I looked over my shoulder 
and saw her sliding away down, tail foremost, pawing the 
eTound in 4 yain attempt to stay herself and recover her feet. 
Then she disappeared, and my servants running to ty 
assistance, 1 sprang to my feet. The first fifteen yards 
below the road, was a pretty steep incline, so steep that if I 
had let go my hold to go to the filly’s assistance, I should 
probably have lost my footing and shared her fate, yet not 
so steep but that a man on his feet might keep his foothol, 
might even haye gone to the poor brute’s assistance, and 
getting her bridle in one hand and a tufi of grass in the 
other, have enabled her to recover her feet; but it would 
lave been rash to attempt it from my position as J clung to 
the edge of the road, A few minutes’ watching and then 
far away below I saw the poor beast roll out on the green 
bank of the Ganges and disappear in some long grass. She 
had left her viscera, her saddle, and her hoofs on the way, 
and if it had not been a life habit with me to spring from 
my saddle, without using the stirrup, 1 suppose I should 
have had a yery good chance of reaching the Hindoo heayen, 
Another couple of days and we reach Lacca, where the 
tents are pitched for the summer, the office opened, postal 
communications established with the plains and with each 
forester in charge of a forest tract, The timber contractor 
gets his instructions as to what railway ties to get out and 
where, and the business of the season commences, unbroken 
by thought of sport for the present, for the wild sheep and 
chamois, and all their kith and kin, will be little better than 
skin and bones until the June sun shall have rendered the 
mountain grass nutritious. 
Here at this spot in the valley of the Ganges, ten thousand 
feet above the sea level, is my headquarters for the summer, 
Here I have my. garden, whicli is soon stocked with vege- 
table and flower seeds. On the right bank, on which 1s my 
camp, the slopes are comparatively easy, and a great deal of 
the land is cultivated in terraces, but across the river, which 
at this point is wide, shallow, and with but little fall for a 
mile of its course, the bare face of the broken rock rises 
almost perpendicularly for fifteen hundred feet. Looking a 
little further down stream, the eye reaches above the timber 
limits, above the topmost stunted birch and juniper, to an 
emerald tableland, the summer pasture grounds of the shep- 
herds and haunt of the wild sheep, the Tare, the Gooril and 
their kindred, and of the black and brown bears. Looking 
up stream, the hardwood forest is supplanted by the somber 
foliage of the deodar, or cedar of Lebanon, which rises tier 
on tier, to the foot of the everlasting snow peaks, for which 
they form a magnificent setting, This is the only timber in 
the region deemed of any value by the Forest Department. 
There is walnut, oak, aud other valuable hardwoods, hut 
they cannot be floated down to the plains, and of all the 
conifers, the deodar is the only one whose timber does good 
service as railway ties. 
The Ganges forests of which I had charge were supposed 
to be inexhaustible at our rate of felling, and 1 was instructed 
to interview the Rajal and prepare him for a renewal of the 
lease when the current lease should expire. I had then to 
temper the brilliant reports of my predecessors 1n office and 
announce that I had every available timber tree marked and 
numbered, and that instead of a hundred and fifty thousand, 
as wildly estimated, there was something short of five 
thousand, , 
These forésts have shared the fate of allthe deodar forests 
of British India which twenty years ago were pronounced 
inexhaustible, They want a hundred and fifty years to re- 
cover themselves, but the grand old stems of thirty and forty 
feet girth, cutting a hundred broad-gauge ties each, if they 
are not already traditions of the past, soon will be. 
In this camp as my headquarters, I deyoted two or three 
morvings a week to office duties. The great bulk of the 
correspondence was in the vernacular, being weekly reports 
and general correspondence with my native foresters, these 
were read to me; the munshi took an abstract of my orders, and 
later m the day I had another hour’s sitting to hear his replies 
read to me; then I had to keep an eye on my English office, 
examine the preseribed forms, and look to the stock and cash ~ 
accounts, keep a record of all trees felled, logged, converted 
and floated, and tally these with the returns from the catch- 
ing depots below. ‘The intervening days were mostly spent 
in inspecting felling and sawing operations, sometimes camp- 
ing out a day or two; and later in the season, when the work 
was well in hand, the ready villagers would be summoned, 
and a shooting excursion organized, and sometimes protracted 
to a week’s absence. The game is hard to stalk in these 
mountain regions, but if you can steal on it unobserved, the 
noise of the rifle as it reverberates from hill to hill so nearly 
resembles that of the evyer-rectitring avalanche, that it 
scarcely startles the animals. 
This region was a very favorite one with forest officers. 
The camp at Lacea was only two days’ march from the Tar- 
tar boundary, immediately within which were the feeding 
grounds of the Ovs ammon, the father of all the muttons, 
tor whose head many an enthusiastic sportsman would gladly 
have bartered a month’s pay. The bear and wild sheep and 
chamois on our own side of the boundary gave excellent sport 
for one hardy and daring enough for mountain climbing; 
ee oes deer, and the moonal pheasant were also plen- 
tiful, 
The sense of freedom, of room, experienced in these moun- 
fain solitudes, the stillness unbroken save by the occasional - 
rumbling of the avalanche, all tended to raise the beholder 
above the level of every-day life and divert the currént of 
his thoughts into harmony with the surroundings. ' Profes— 
sionally, too, the charge was almost a sinecure, 
’ 
‘ 4 There wer 
no nurseries to raise, no planting, no thinning, no stock 
be taken, or working plans to be framed; in fact, no conser 
vaney. It was outside British India, and from the time it 
was leased until I was forced to dispel the illusion, it was 
fondly believed that the forests would reproduce themselves 
naturally as fast as they were cut oyer; but it was a charge 
which gave the forest officer a chance to recover his stamina 
after long years of toil below, enabling him to go back 
with renewed vigor for a winter's work in the Sewaliks, 
where every effort was being bent to inaugurate systematic 
conservancy; where the forests were cut up into blocks by 
fire lines, the blocks numbered, their standing stock esti- 
mated and data established for the felling operations of future 
years. In this lower region, too, there was-a very lars 
trade in bamboos, and while in charge of it I had the credit 
of clearing the Ramgunga, an affluent of the Ganges, for 
nearly thirty miles of its course, and of utilizing tpe bam- 
boos as floats for the heavy Sal timbers from forests which 
had never previously been tapped for either timber or bam- 
boos, but I am charged with having spoiled the mahseer fish- 
ing. It was the first river channel cleared in India. aA, 
Camp Lak Kan, Upper Ganges, Northwest Proyinces, India. 
A “TWELFTH” IN PERTHSHIRE. 
T is near the twelfth of August, and everybody talks 
about the grouse prospects. A few days move, and the 
heather-grown moors far and wide will be shot over, and the 
ring of the breechloaders will wake long-dormant echoes in 
the Straths and Bens of the old Scottish Highlands. By 
every north-bound train scores of sportsmen are arriving, 
and the guns in their leather cases are brought out en the 
platforms of railway stations, coupled dogs, fine silky 
coated setters, beautiful intelligent pointers, reliable old 
retrievers jump out of baggage cars, weary with the long 
journey. Kilted gamekeepers welcome their musters back 
once more, and the parties drive off to their shooting lodges, 
With the sportsmen come their wives, daughters, some 
friends, every one who is going to make the stay up North 
pleasant, and help to combine delightful society with the 
glorious shooting. Eyerywhere is animation, laughter, 
welcoming old friends back again, pleasant anticipations 
and general happiness. 
Look at the sportsmen, here you see members of the high- 
est nobility, there merchant princes from all the big towns, 
and old captains, and majors, and admirals, and generals, 
who have shot everywhere from Sweden and Norway to 
way beyond the tropics, Woe to the old cack-grouse that 
rises in range of them, far better it is to sail away after hear- 
ing the doubled crack of the young man from London, who 
has to rely mostly upon talk for huge bags. And once you 
have reached the shooting hoiae, how the keepers put the 
suns in order,and make the dogs comfortable in the old 
kennels, to the bars of which many a hawk and owl, many a 
crow and raven, and weasel and stoat has been nailed, to 
prove that Duncan and Angus look sharp after vermin. 
Then a long talk after dinner, with the inevitable fragrant 
weed, and many inquiries are made of the old game watchers 
who for months before have been jealously watching the 
moors, and they report that last season there has been but 
little grouse disease, and that the broods are large and strong 
on the wing, Outside we hear a noise, bye and bye the 
sounds approach, the village piper has come to welcome the 
owner back, and we hear ‘‘Jennie’s Bawbee” and ““The 
Campbells are Coming” and many other old “reel” and 
*pibroch.” . : 
The next day is the day betore the 12th, and impatience 
reigns as 4 master, and shells are counted, and the guns all 
stand in bright, polished rows, dear old friends; the com- 
panions which haye gone through so much, seen so many 
climates, and killed so many a uohle bird. ; 
At last the day is over, and heds are sought again, it is hard 
to go to sleep, but when you do, visions come over you, and 
you go through many a far away day of sport in dream, 
when you suddenly wake, and the rising sun sends golden 
beams in your chamber. Up and out of hed at once, there 
are no laggards on the 12th, there is bustle in every room, 
and as the inmates-all join in the dining room every one Is 
happy, for the morning is beautiful, spirits are high, and the 
grand old day has dawned at last. 
Breakfast is onthe table. How J wish that every reader of 
our favorite Formst anp STREAM could take a real good 
Scotch breakfast, crisp oat cakes, warm scones, delicious 
smoked Finnan haddies, and jams, and marmalades, and 
cold rabbit pie, a meal to tempt a hermit back trom his cell 
into the busy world again. ; 
We are through, and the ladies bid us good bye, and wish 
us good success, and we are off, quite a party, The kind 
owner of the shooting, a grand specimen of a fine old Scotch 
gentleman, on the old white pony, for we have a mile or so 
to walk and climb before we reach the moors, and he cannot 
walk as much as he used to, and wants to save himself for 
the tramp on the moor. His two sons, the elder a genial 
Oxford oarsman, the other a promising young Rugby 
cricketer, an elderly major, who can tell us all about tiger 
shooting and boar spearing in India, and who has killed 
———_ 
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