once cultivated soil are covered by dense jungle of grass and bamboo, full of tiger, bear, bison, sambar and spotted deer, and inhabited, here and there, by Kurkies and other aboriginal tribes, but having a deadly climate during great part of the year. Approaching Khandwa, on the railway, we see the ancient and famous fort of Asirghar in the distance rising 850 feet above the plain, and 2300 feet above the sea; and Khandwa itself, which has been built with the stones from an old Jain town, is important now as a place where the whole traffic of Central India to Bombay meets, and as one terminus of a branch line of rail which takes into a great native state of India, and the capital of the famous Holkar.

Here we enter into the Narbada valley, and are soon between two notable ranges of mountains, the Sátpúra and the Vindhya. Ten years ago the Central Provinces were described as "for the most part a terra incognita;" and, though now well known, the highlands of Central India present abundance of the densest jungle, full of the wildest animals and the most primitive of men. In the early dawn, as the railway train rushes along through the cool but mild air, are seen to the right an irregular line of picturesque mountains covered with thick jungle to their summits; and the Englishman unaccustomed to India, who leaves the railway and goes into them, will find himself as much out of his reckoning as if he threw himself overboard a Red Sea steamer and made for the Arabian coast.

The Narbada, which is the boundary between the Deccan and Hindústhan proper, rises at Amartank, at the height of 5000 feet, in the dominions of the painted Rajah of Rewa, who was certainly the most pictur

esque figure in the great Bombay durbar two and a half years ago; and who, more recently, being in bad health and unfit for the cares of rule, has shown his great good sense by asking the British Government to undertake the tutelage of his state and of his son until that son attains his majority. It enters the Gulf of Bombay at the cotton town of Bharuch or Broach, and to the English merchant is almost the most important of the Indian rivers. It is supposed that, in prehistoric times, its valley must have been a series of great lakes, which are now filled by alluvial deposits of a recent epoch; and the discovery of flint implements in its alluvium, by the late Lieutenant Downing Sweeney, has indicated it as an important field for the researches of the archeologist. Though its upper course is tumultuous enough, in deep clefts through marble rock, and falling in cascades over high ledges, it soon reaches a rich broad valley, containing iron and coal, which is one of the largest granaries and is the greatest cotton-field of India. Through that valley it runs, a broad yellow strip of sand and shingle; and it has altogether a course of about 800 miles, chiefly on a basalt bed, through a series of rocky clefts and valley-basins.

If the traveller has come straight from Bombay, he will feel inclined to halt at Jabalpúr (Jubbulpore) after his ride of twenty-six hours; but if his stay there be only for a day, he will do well, after seeing the novelty of a Thug school of industry, to hire a horse-carriage, and drive on about ten miles to the famous and wonderful Marble Rocks, where I found a beautifullysituated bungalow for travellers, and an old but by no means worn-out Khansamah, who cooked for me a less

pretentious but probably as good a dinner as I could have got in the hotels of Jabalpúr. The place I speak of presents one of those enchanting scenes which remain for ever vivid in the memory. The Narbada there becomes pent up among rocks, and falls over a ledge about thirty feet high, and then flows for about two miles through a deep chasm below the surface of the surrounding country, cut through basalt and marble, but chiefly through the latter. The stream above its fall has a breadth of 100 yards, but in the chasm of only about 20 yards; and the glittering cliffs of white marble which rise above it are from 80 to 120 feet high, and are composed of adolomite and magnesian limestone.

Such, briefly stated, are the constituents of the scene, but they are insufficient to explain its weird charm. I went up between the Marble Rocks in the early morning in a boat, by moonlight, and floated down in sunlight; and as we moved slowly up that romantic chasm, the drip of water from the paddles, and the wash of the stream, only showed how deep the silence was. A tiger had been doing some devastation in the neighbourhood, and one of the boatmen whispered that we might have a chance of seeing it come down to drink at the entrance of the cleft, or moving along the rocks abov, which of course made the position more interesting. The marble walls on one side, which sparkled like silver in the moonlight, reflected so white a radiance as almost to illumine the shadow of the opposite cliffs; but the stream itself lay in deeper shadow, with here and there shafts of dazzling light falling upon it; and above, the moonbeams had woven in the air a silvery veil, through which even the largest

stars shone only dimly. It did not look at all like a scene on earth, but rather as if we were entering the portals of another world.

Coming down in the brilliant sunlight the chasm appeared less weird but hardly less extraordinary. Large fish began to leap at the dragon - flies which skimmed over the surface of the water; monkeys ran along the banks above, and chattered angrily at us; many peacocks also appeared above, uttering their harsh cries; and the large bees' nests which hung every here and there from the Marble Rocks, began to show unpleasant symptoms of life. Let every visitor to this place beware how he disturbs these ferocious and reckless insects. They are very large; their sting is very poisonous, and they display a fury and determination in resenting any interference, which makes them most formidable enemies. Two Englishmen, I was told, were once floating through the chasm, when a ball, which one of them had fired at a peacock, slanted off from the rock and unfortunately happened to hit one of these nests. The consequence was that the bees immediately swarmed about the boat, and stung one of its occupants, who was unable to swim, so severely that he died from the effects. His companion leaped into the stream and floated down with it; but even then a cloud of bees followed him for a long way, watching his movements, and immediately attacked his face and every portion of his body which appeared for an instant above the surface of the water.

Allahabad, the capital of the North-West Provinces, has become one of the most important places in India from its position at the junction of two mighty rivers, and as the centre of the railway communication be

tween Bombay, Calcutta, and the Panjab. It possesses a newspaper, the 'Pioneer,' which obtained great popularity all over India from the humour of its late editor, the Rev. Julian Robinson; and while its past is interesting from its connection with the Indian Mutiny and the stemming of the tide of mutiny, the archæologist will find in it remains which are of great importance for the elucidation of Indian antiquity. It was also well known to English travellers as the residence of Mr Rivett-Carnac, then the cotton commissioner, who has distinguished himself by his great efforts to enable India to meet the demands of Great Britain for its products, by his activity in collecting information of all kinds, and his extreme readiness in imparting it to those who are happy enough to come in contact with him.