Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables, Graphs and Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- CHAPTER 1 Introduction
- Part I Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
- CHAPTER 2 The Context: Society at the Onset of the Colonial Rule
- CHAPTER 3 The Changing Agrarian Environment
- CHAPTER 4 The Changing Attitude of the State towards Forests
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
CHAPTER 2 - The Context: Society at the Onset of the Colonial Rule
from Part I - Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables, Graphs and Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- CHAPTER 1 Introduction
- Part I Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
- CHAPTER 2 The Context: Society at the Onset of the Colonial Rule
- CHAPTER 3 The Changing Agrarian Environment
- CHAPTER 4 The Changing Attitude of the State towards Forests
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It is easy to write of rocks and wilds, of torrents and precipices; it is easy to tell of awe such scenes inspire: this style and these descriptions are common and hackneyed. But it is not so simple, to many surely not very possible, to convey an adequate idea of the stern and rugged majesty of some scenes; to paint their lonely (lesertness, and define the undefinable sensation of reverence of dread that steals over the mind while contemplating the death like ghastly calm that is shed over them; and when at such a moment we remember our homes, our friends, our firesides, and all social intercourse with our fellows, and feel our present solitude, and far distance from all these dear ties, how vain is it to strive at description! Surely such a scene is Gungotree. Nor is it, of the surrounding scenery, a spot which lightly calls forth powerful feelings. We are now in center of the stupendous Himala, the loftiest and perhaps most rugged range of mountains in the world. We were at the acknowledged source of that noble river, equally an object of veneration and a source of fertility, plenty and opulence to Hindostan; and we have now reached the holiest shrine of Hindoo worship which these holy hills contain. These are surely striking considerations, combining with the solemn grandeur of the place, to move the feelings strongly.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Himalayan DegradationColonial Forestry and Environmental Change in India, pp. 19 - 50Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2008