The Great Hedge of India: Britain's 2,500-Mile Salt Wall

Imagine a living wall of thorns taller than a man, thick enough to stop a camel, running across the Indian subcontinent for hundreds of miles.

The British East India Company understood this with cold clarity.

Where there is a steep tax, there is smuggling.

The barrier had a dry, bureaucratic name — the Inland Customs Line.

But fences and patrols have gaps.