126 THE INDIAN IEMPIRE [CHAP.
Employ- In the successful management of the forests one of the most
ment of important details is the method by which the produce can be
animals
as carriers extracted and conveyed to a profitable market. However ex-
of forest cellent the main system of communications may be, there yet
elephants remains the problem of bringing timber or other material from
the forest to the road, railway, or river that leads to the place of
utilization. In very few cases can the use of costly appliances
be justified in the extraction of a widely scattered crop, and
hence the large employment of bullocks, buffaloes, and ele-
phants in forest operations, not only in wheeled traffic but also
by the more interesting method of carrying or dragging. In
some parts of India the extraction of produce is almost entirely
dependent on the aid of bullocks and buffaloes, and long files
of these animals, under the control of wild Banjaras or Mu-
hammadans, may be met on forest paths laden with bamboos
or scantlings; in others cattle are yoked to larger timber and
drag it by sheer strength to the desired locality. Farther east
the employment of elephants in the working of large timber
is almost universal. Here heavy logs of from 2 to 6 tons are
dragged to those creeks where good floods may be expected in
the monsoon months, and are thence attended in their passage
to the main river by elephants, who push the stranded timber
into the stream, or, at the peril of their lives, relieve a 'jam'
in some dangerous turn. The work of these sagacious animals
does not, however, end in the forest; for on the arrival, perhaps
after many months of adventure, of the timber rafts at the sale
dep6t the elephant is again ready to drag the logs from the
water, and is responsible for the methodical arrangement of the
various lots, for piling the heavy timber of the reserve stock, and
for the accurate stacking of the sawn scantlings. It is not sur-
prising that the value of these intelligent and willing animals
should have increased with the extension of forest operations.
Their price has in fact more than doubled during the past few
years; and the protection of the wild herds against the hunter,
and the introduction of 'kheddas,' have become necessary if
the supply of these valuable workers is to be maintained. With-
out elephants it would, under present circumstances, be impos-
sible to meet the demand for teak timber throughout the world.
Later on they too will disappear, for the conditions of forestry
in India are undergoing the most rapid changes, and when man
interferes to assign the limits of the forest and regulate its
growth he interferes also with the freedom so essential to the
existence of its former inhabitants.
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