Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/176



164 NAGPUR DISTRICT. Central Provinces, as well as of the Division and District of Nágpur, are at NAGPUR CITY. Physical Aspects.—The District of Nagpur lies immediately below the great table-land of the Satpura range. Its northern frontier is one continuous chain of hills. At its western extremity this chain consists of spurs from the Satpuras; but farther east, those mountains themselves form the boundary. A second great division of hills shuts in the District on the south-western side, reaching its highest point south-west of Kátol where the hill of Kharki rises almost 2000 feet above sea-level. Across the country thus enclosed, a third range runs from north to south, parting it into two great plains of very unequal size, which, with the hills that bound them, occupy nearly the whole of the District. In this range the hills are bare and sterile, with rugged and often grotesque outlines. They culminate in the height named Pilkápár, 1899 feet above the sea. Towards the south-east, however, the boundary of Nágpur runs at some distance below the second hill chain, thus including within the District the richly cultivated valley of the Nánd river on the southern side of the hills. This tract naturally belongs to the great Wardhá cotton field, of which it forms the most eastern and elevated part. The three hill ranges must all be regarded as offshoots belonging to the Satpuras on the north. They nowhere attain any great elevation. While the heights themselves are rocky and sterile, the valleys and lowlands at their feet possess a rich and fertile soil. In the midst of barren hills, covered only with loose boulders and low scrub, the traveller unexpectedly looks down upon valleys studded with fruittrees, and smiling with corn and garden cultivation. Strips of highly cultivated soil rise from the plain below, and creep through the gorges and up the hillside, until they suddenly lose themselves in rock and brushwood. In the contrasts thus offered between hill and dale, jungle and homestead, desert and garden, the nost striking feature of the hill scenery is to be found. Of the two great plains, that to the west of Pilkápár slopes down to the river Wardha, beyond which lies East Berár. This western tract is watered by the Jám and the Madár, on their way to join the Wardha, and contains the most highly cultivated land in the District; everywhere it abounds with mango and other fruit trees, and teems with the richest garden cultivation. The great plain on the eastern side of the Pilkápár range, at least six times larger than the other, stretches away to the confines of Bhandara and Chándá. It consists of a rich undulating country, luxuriant with mango groves and trees of all sorts, and dotted towards the cast with countless small tanks. Its general slope is towards the Waingangá, which flows for a short distance between Nagpur and Bhandára. Through this plain the perennial stream of the Kanhán (which receives the Pench, the Kolár, the