VALLEY OF THE SOANE. 115 
Staphylinidee, are generally considered uncommon. The latter tribes 
here swarmed under the clods, of many species too, but all small, 
and so singularly active, that I could not give up time enough to 
colleet well. In the soil again, the round, egg-like, earthy chrysalis of 
the Sphine Atropos (?), and the many-celled one of the leaf-cutter bee, 
were most frequent. 
A large Euphorbia (E. ligulata?) is common all along the Soane, 
aud, indeed, used everywhere, since leaving Dunwah, for fencing. I 
have not seen the E. Indica and the E. tereticaulis, or very rarely, 
since quitting Calcutta, nor yet the Opuntia. 
From this place onwards, up the Soane, we have no road of any 
kind, and are compelled to be our own road-engineers. The sameness 
of the vegetation and lateness of the season for botanizing made me 
the less regret this, having expected both luxuriance and novelty in 
these seldom-visited and never botanized wilds. Before us the valley 
narrowed considerably : the woods became denser, the country on the 
south side was broken with rounded hills, and on the north the noble 
cliffs of the Kymaor almost dip down to the river. The villages, too, 
are smaller, more scattered and poverty-stricken, with the Mahoua 
and Mango alone of the usual trees, the Banyan, Peepul, and Tama- 
rind being rare. The natives look more of a jungle race: they are tall, 
athletic, erect in gait, less indolent, and more spirited than the flat 
and insipid natives of the comparatively civilized countries. 
Feb. 21st.—Started at daylight; but so slow and difficult was our 
progress, through fields and woods, and across deep gorges from the 
hills, that we only got five miles in the day. The elephant's head too 
ached too severely to let him push ; and the cattle will not advance when 
the draft is not easy; nay, what is worse, it is impossible to get them 
to pull together up the inclined planes we cut, except by placing one 
man at the head of each of the six, eight, or ten in a team, and 
playing at screw-tail, when the obstinacy of one capsizes the vehicle. 
The small garrys and hackeries (native carts) got on better ; though it 
was most nervous work to see them, rushing down the steeps, especially 
those which are loaded with our fragile articles and the awkward 
palkees, which we had no other means of transporting, but upon 
eels, 
Kosderah, where we halted, is a pretty villi with a broad stream 
from the hills running past it. € hills are of limestone, and 
