"palki gharri" over the interminable Grand Trunk Road. Even in a well-cushioned comfortable railway apartment it is somewhat trying to shoot through the blinding sunlight and golden dust of an Indian plain; and knowing ones are to be seen in such circumstances expending their ice and soda-water upon the towels which they have wrapped round their heads. But we are compelled to have recourse to such measures only in the trying transition periods between the hot and cold seasons; because, when the heat is at its greatest, artificiallycooled carriages are provided for first-class passengers. Three days from Bombay and twenty pounds conveyance expenses will land the traveller at Masúri (Mussooree),* on the outer range of the Himáliya; and yet, if he chooses to halt at various places by the way, a single step almost will take him into some of the wildest jungle and mountain scenery of India, among * The spelling of Indian names is at present in a transition state, though so much has been done to reduce it to one common standard that it is expedient to follow that standard now, which is the official system of spelling adopted by the Indian Government, and usually followed by Dr Keith Johnston in his valuable maps. That system partakes of the nature of a compromise, for accents are only used when specially necessary; and in the lists drawn up by г W. W. Hunter they are used very sparingly, and are omitted in some cases where they might have been added with advantage. I have followed these official lists in almost every instance, except in using the word “ Himáliya ;" and the simple rules to be borne in mind in order to render their system of spelling intelligible are that— 1. The long á sounds broadly, as in almond. 2. The short a without an accent, has usually somewhat of a sound, as the a in rural. 3. The with an accent is like e, or the i in ravine. 4. The u with an accent is like oo, or the u in bull. 5. The e has a broad sound, as the a in dare. 6. The o sounds openly as in note. 7. The ai sounds as in aisle, or the i in high. 8. The au sounds like ou in cloud. the most primitive tribes, and to the haunts of wild animals of the most unamiable kind. Had the Bishoppoet lived now, he might have sung, with much more. truth than he did fifty years ago 66 Thy towers, they say, gleam fair, Bombay, for the schemes of Sir Bartle Frere, energetically carried out by his successor, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, have given that city the most imposing public buildings to be found in the East-if we except some of the Mohammedan mosques, with the palaces and tombs (for these, too, are public buildings) of the Mogul Emperors—and in other ways, also, have made it worthy of its natural situation, and a splendid gate of entrance to our Indian Empire. But half-Europeanised as the capital of Western India is, within ten miles of it, in the island of Salsette, at the little-visited Buddhist caves of Kanhari, the traveller will find not only a long series of ancient richlysculptured cave-temples and monastic retreats, but also the most savage specimens of animal and vegetable life, in a thick jungle which often seems alive with monkeys, and where, if he only remains over night, he would have a very good chance of attracting the attention of the most ferocious denizen of the Indian forest. Though the locomotive bears him swiftly and smoothly up the inclines of the Thull Ghaut, instead of his having to cross the Sáhyádri range by a bridle-path, or be dragged painfully by tortured bullocks at the rate of half a mile an hour, as was the case only a few years ago; yet he has only to stop at the picturesquely-situated bungalow at Egutpoora, and wander a little way along the edge of the great bounding wall of the Deccan, in order to look down immense precipices of columnar basalt, and see huge rock-snakes sunning themselves upon the bastions of old Marátha forts, and be startled by the booming cry of the Entellus monkey, or by coming on the footprints of a leopard or a tiger. And it may not be amiss, when writing of the Western Ghauts, to point out the remark able parallelism, which has not before been noted, between these mountains and the Himáliya, for it may serve to make the contour of both ranges easily intelligible. Both are immense bounding walls; the one to the elevated plains of the Deccan, and the other to the still more elevated tableland of Central Asia. Carrying out this parallel, the Narbada (Nerbudda) will be found to occupy very much the same position as the Indus, the Sutlej as the Tápti, and the Godaveri as the Brahmapútra. All have their rise high up on their respective tablelands; some branches of the Godaveri rise close to the sources of the Narbada, just as the Indus and the Brahmapútra have their origin somewhere about Lake Manasarowar; and yet the former rivers fall into the sea on opposite sides of the Indian peninsula, just as the two latter do. So, in like manner, the Tápti has its origin near that of the Narbada, as the Sutlej rises close to the Indus; and if we can trust the Sind tradition, which represents the upper part of the Arabian Sea as having once been dry land, there may have been a time within the human era when the Tápti flowed into the Narbada, as the Sutlej does into the Indus some way above the sea. There is no mountain group in the Highlands of Central India where the three southern rivers rise quite so close together as do the three northern rivers from the lofty and inaccessible Tibetan Kailas, but still there is a great similarity in their relative positions; and it is only when we think of the Sáhyádri and Himáliya as boundary walls that we can understand their relations to the tableland behind them, and their terrific fall to the low-lying land in front. But there is no snow on the Sáhyádri mountains, sc we must hurry on past Násik, where there is a holy city scarcely less sacred than Benares in the estimation of the Hindus; so holy is it, that the mere mention of the river on which it stands is supposed to procure the forgiveness of sins; and the banks of this river are covered by as picturesque ghauts and temples as those of the Gangetic city. No traveller should omit stopping at Nándgaum, in order to pay a visit to the immense series of carved hills, of rock-temples and sculptured caves, which make Ellora by far the most wonderful and instructive place in India. If we have to diverge from the railway line again into the upper Tápti valley, we shall find that the basins of rich and 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 the 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 picturesque figure in the great Bombay durbar two years ago. 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 archæologist. 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 he will find a beautifully |