This is a business which requires great skill, and knowledge of the various methods of timber transport; but it would be quite possible to train the hardy villagers of these mountains to the work. They already are very good axemen, and every hillman carries an axe, with which he can quickly fell the largest trees. The forests being all Government property, there would be no difficulty in exploiting the timber; and saw-mills could be easily constructed at the depôts, worked by the sidestreams coming from the lofty hills above.

Let me describe a typical hill forest in this region. First, starting from the Pindar river, where are villages with fields of rice and terraces irrigated by water-courses cleverly led from the side valleys, we ascend past fields of Indian corn nearly ripe, and clumps of great-leaved plantains laden with fruit. There are lemon-trees and apricots, figs and wild cherries, and luxuriant mulberries and shady evergreen mango-trees, some with great stems very old and twisted. There are several kinds of figs, the sacred pipal and banian. Higher up, following the villagers' paths by which they drive their cattle to pasture, we come to enormous walnut and sycamore trees. The walnuts are collected by the natives and stored in great quantities. Presently we strike into forests of evergreen oak of three different kinds, several kinds of acacia, and many sorts of underwoods, berberis, and wait-a-bit thorns.

Higher up, at about 8,000 feet elevation, we get into the real pine forests, which grow best on the less steep northern slopes where the sun does not glare. They prefer to live under the shadow of the great mountain, where the soil is black and deep, and many bulbous and flowering plants, ferns innumerable, and shrubs of the azalea and magnolia type abound. There are clusters of yew

and box, and wild vines and all sorts of rare flowers. The southern slopes have quite a different set of trees and shrubs, the great scarlet-flowering tree rhododendron being resplendent.

It is delightful to camp in the cool regions of the pine forest after the rains, when the climate is splendid. The tent is pitched by some gurgling stream in a little dell, where there is a smooth turf for the tent, studded with scarlet potentillas and innumerable lovely flowers, and bordered by maidenhair and other feathery ferns, of which I have counted fifteen kinds in a space of twenty yards. Clumps of graceful ringals are placed on the slopes just in the right spots to form a most perfect landscape garden, with never an incongruity, such as artificial ones are ever presenting. The great gray stems of splendid pines (Pinus excelsa) stand dark with deep shadows cast on the verdant sod. There are groves of enormously tall cypress, straight, and 150 feet high, with sharppointed tops, all of different ages and heights (not uniform as in plantations), thinned out only by storms and old age. Then, in the more sheltered northern breast of the mountain, stretch miles of the lofty raga forest, silver firtrees like masts, and 12 feet in girth, towering to the skies and standing close together; and there are alternate groups and stretches of the elegant weeping spruce, dolchella, even taller and grander stems. There are single trees standing in the open and at the edges of the forest, absolutely perfect, with every branch in its place, curved and drooping to the ground, more picturesquely placed by Nature than by the most artistic lover of landscape gardening.

The middle ranges of the Himalayas are being exploited for tea planting. The climate and soil are so varied that the plants of all countries are represented, and almost anything will grow if its proper region is found. Among

other valuable products the tea - plant was found by Robert Fortune, who introduced it from China, to thrive excellently at an elevation of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet. The Government, with the object of encouraging this industry, established several experimental tea-gardens, which were proved to be very successful.

Among others, that at Pauri in Garhwal was worked up to 1861 by Government, and then sold to a private planter. The industry was encouraged so as to induce settlers, principally retired officers, to embark in teaplanting. There were several most thriving plantations in Kumaon. Sites were selected where the villagers had not utilized the land, and where jungle could be cleared away. On the lower ranges south of the Pindar river there were several fine plantations, at Duara Hat, Dunagiri, Ranikhet, and other places. Native labour was easily procured, and the slopes of the hills cleared and planted, Government giving grants of seed from its gardens in Assam, mostly China seed. The variety discovered by Fortune in Assam was also tried, and found to succeed even better and produce a larger crop. The plant is a small-leaved, white flowering evergreen, a sort of camellia. The seed is large like a hazel-nut, and germinates rapidly during the rains in seed beds, being fit to plant out the second year. The plants are then put into the garden in rows about 5 feet apart, and grow rapidly, producing tea from the fresh sprouting leaves early in spring, and again in summer and rains. It was quite an agreeable surprise to come across a plantation in the midst of a wild jungle, with its well-tilled slopes intersected by paths leading to the cha godown, where the leaves were rolled, fired over charcoal, and manufactured. The planter's house, built of native stone, with its wide verandahs, was usually placed in a most picturesque

situation, with extensive view of endless forest-clad ranges and valleys sloping away, and the distant snowy mountains standing grandly against the northern sky. The life of the tea-planter, with his family and with constant occupation, is not a bad one. His home is in the midst of beautiful scenery, and his opportunities for shikar are endless. The higher up the plantation stands, the more highly flavoured is the tea; but the quantity grown is much greater in the hotter, low-lying positions. The low price of tea has much reduced the profit, but at first it was sufficient to meet the local demand in order to pay its way. The flavour of Kumaon tea is notoriously excellent. Its fine perfume is easily distinguished, and if not made too strong it is quite the best tea that can be partaken of.

The hospitality of tea-planters was notorious, and was a pleasant variety in a life in the forests. The depreciation of silver benefits the tea-planter considerably, as his labour is paid in rupees and the tea sold for gold.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT CHIR PINE FOREST

LET us wander through the ranges of the middle Himalayas, which we may call the semi-tropical zone, where the chir pine flourishes everywhere at an elevation of from 4,000 to 6,000 feet. The Pinus longifolia is a tree peculiar to the Himalayas, and has an extensive range from Nepal to the western Punjab. More especially on the southern faces and tops of the numerous ranges, on the sunniest slopes, these handsome pines, with tall, straight, red-coloured stems, grow to the greatest size, and cover hundreds of miles of otherwise bare and grassy hills. The spines, in clusters, measure 12 to 14 inches long, and are bright green, huge aigrettes of shiny foliage forming umbrella-like heads, somewhat like those of the Corsican pine, and bearing similar great knobby fir-cones, with big seeds.

The Forest Survey shows the area of forests surveyed in Kumaon to be 433,951 acres, and in British Garhwal 253,472 acres; total 687,423 statute acres, equal to 1,074 square miles.* The area of chir alone is 152,264 * The areas given in the reports are:

Pinus longifolia (chir)

Pinus excelsa (dolchella)

Pinus Brunoniana (tungsing)

Picea Webbiana and Pindrow (raga)

Acres. 152,264