14. Toon. Cedrela toona.

Indian mahogany. Timber fine, well coloured, used for furniture.

15. Imli. Tamarindus Indica.

Tamarind. Very beautiful, large stem, eatable pods.

24. Sissoo. Dalbergia sissoo.

Very hard wood, most useful in India for spokes of wheels.

25. Bans. Bambusa stricta.

Solid bamboo, used for lances and sticks; very strong.

26. Bambusa tulda.

Giant bamboo; grows 70 feet long; used for a thousand pur

There are over fifteen different

poses; hollow, very strong.
species of bamboo in India.
bamboo floated down the rivers.

27. Phænix dactilifera.

There is an immense export of

The date-palm. Grows well everywhere.

28. Phænix silvestris.

Wild date-palm. Very common.

29. Tar. Borassus flabelliformis.

The toddy-palm or Palmyra-tree. There are some fine specimens at Gorakhpur, growing to a surprising height for so slender a stem, with fine leafy head of great fronds. In its native forests in Southern India it is, next to the date-palm, the most valuable tree, and is used as timber for rafters split out of the stem. It is nearly the strongest timber known, hard and black. Its leaves are plaited into mats and baskets, and make paper for writing on. The top is tapped to make sugar and toddy. It is a beautiful feature in the Oriental landscape. It is very slow growing, and has a sappy pith inside; outside it is as hard as iron.

Of palms there are the cocoanut-palm (Cocos nucifera); the sago-palm (Arenga saccharifera); in Bengal three species of palms Corypha umbraculifera, C. taliera, C. Gebangaall useful for numerous purposes. The areca-palm (Areca catechu) is the most slender of all, growing to 80 feet high, with a stem only a few inches in girth. This and the cocoanut only grow near the sea. In Upper India palms are comparatively rare, and do not, as is supposed, always adorn the landscape; but they grow well wherever they have been permitted to remain—in parks and gardens and some jungles, where they have been planted.

30. Bet. Calamus Rotang.

A genus of palms, Calamus, of which there are fifty-eight known species. It has many representatives in India, the Rattan or Malacca cane being the stoutest. The more slender sortsC. gracilis and C. scipionem-abound on the edges of rivers in the Terai and the Assam hills, the ropes winding in tangled coils several hundred feet long, all armed with thorns and furnished with graceful, palm-like leaves. From these canes the celebrated suspension bridges of Sylhet are made, being often alive and actually growing while spanning great torrents. The split-cane-work for chair-bottoms and furniture, known all over the world, is woven from this material.

The above are a few of the most remarkable forest products deserving notice which abound in the jungles of India.

CHAPTER XIX

JUNGLES IN CENTRAL INDIA AND BUNDELKHAND

IN January, 1866, my duties as Forest Surveyor of the North-West Provinces led me to the districts of Jhansi and Lalitpur, where my instructions from the Secretary to Government, North-West Provinces, Public Works Department, were to explore all the forests to be found, and make a forest survey of them on the scale of 4 inches to the mile, showing the area under timber, and giving a schedule of the number of trees per acre, first, second, third, and fourth class, and other information. The railway was not then completed to Gwalior, and travelling was by night by dak gharry from Agra to Gwalior.

I arrived at the cantonment of Morar, a wide-spreading, neatly laid-out station of the British army, with beautiful straight roads shaded by bright green mango and other trees, barracks and bungalows peeping among the foliage. The stern old fortress of Gwalior is visible, dominating the extensive native town. It stands on a rocky tablemountain some 200 feet above the level, rising sheer up out of the plain, on all sides a solid perpendicular wall of rock, only accessible by the zigzag road cut in the face of the hill, where, perched upon the top, stands the celebrated old gateway in the fort, surmounted by blue enamelled domes glistening in the sun. That this apparently impregnable fortress has been twice taken by British

assault-first by Wellesley in the Maratha war, and secondly by Sir Hugh Rose in the Mutiny-speaks wonders for the pluck of our soldiers. After its recapture from the mutineers, and the reinstatement of the faithful Sindhia, the fort was garrisoned by H.M.'s 52nd Regiment, whose hospitality I had previously enjoyed. The mess-room in the old Maratha palace had a most interesting outlook through a large window in the stern old walls, facing the native city, which lies in the plain below, buried in green foliage, with the roofs and minarets peeping through the trees. At night the twinkling of numerous lights and the hum of a teeming population contrasted with the strains of the regimental band playing in the old courts of the palace.

Having procured camels and tents, my march through the jungle districts of Bundelkhand commenced. They were wild districts, and there were many stories told among the villagers of Tantia Topi and his followers having fled to these jungles and made their last stand.

The Jhansi division, now under a Commissioner, includes the districts of Jhansi, Lalitpur, and Jalaun, which formerly contained extensive forests; but, owing apparently to the natives having worked the iron deposits found in many places, the timber had been cut down, and little remained but scrubby bushes and long grass, which covered extensive areas. These are called dhangs, and are used for grazing cattle and cutting grass and firewood for use at Jhansi.

There is a large area of country waste and capable of growing fine timber. Teak thrives well, and is found along the banks of the Betwa river, but no fine trees exist, except the usual fruit-trees, mahuas and mangoes, which have been protected by the natives; also the pipal and banian. There is no object in nature more venerable

and charming than a banian-tree, with its huge fantastic stem, and roots hanging down like ropes, many of them struck again in the soil, forming, with the spreading branches, rows of cloister-like pillars and arches, beneath which a whole regiment might camp in deep, cool shade.

The jungles proper, however depleted of useful timber, only need time and protection to produce a fine growth of young trees, such as teak (Tectona grandis), sissoo, saj, and other kinds. The beautiful siassa (Dalbergia latifolia), or Bombay rose-wood, is also indigenous, and ebony (Diospyrus) is very common, though only in the sapling stage-an extraordinary black, broad, leatheryleaved tree. The march to Jhansi was through a jungly, open plain, with villages interspersed, and game of all sorts was often seen-antelope (hiran), gazelle (chinkara), blue bull (nil ghao), spotted deer (chital), and other game, including the beautiful little four-horned deer (chausingha), hares, pea-fowl, and partridges.

My camp is pitched near a village under an enormous pipal-tree. The camels, which have carried tents and baggage, are lying tethered by a neighbouring tree, and are munching their bhusa of barley straw, occasionally grunting or gurgling in a sleepy way. The horses are tied to pegs before and behind, and are being groomed by their syces, while the grass-cutters empty before them their loads of dub grass, scraped up by the roadsides with an iron digging tool, roots and all, from which the dust is well shaken.

The cool evening shadows rapidly lengthen, and the sun disappears like a crimson bowl under the horizon in a blaze of scarlet mist; darkness comes on at once, and the still air as quickly falls in temperature from about 80° to 40°. This is the time to guard against the chill which produces fever. One soon finds the necessity of