Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/189

Rh 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 Hindusthan proper, rises at Amartank, at the height of five thousand 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 eight hundred 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-situated bungalow for travellers, and an old but by no means worn-out Khansamah, who will cook for him a less pretentious but probably as good a dinner as he would find in the hotels of Jabalpúr. The place I speak of presents one of those enchanting scenes which remain forever 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 one hundred yards, but in the chasm of only about twenty yards; and the glittering cliffs of white marble which rise above it are from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet high, and are composed of a dolomite 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; an 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 above, 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 dragonflies 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