VALLEY OF THE SOANE. 133 
a cliff as to admit of a path "ug over the shattered crags. This 
pass is called ** Ek powa-Ghat,” very significantly, for it means “ one 
foot Ghaut.” It is covered with brushwood, clinging to the cliffs and 
crags, very abrupt and rocky. On either side the precipices are ex- 
tremely steep, of horizontal rocks, continued in an unbroken line; and 
the views over the plain and Soane valley, over which the sun was now 
setting, were superb. Bidjegur to the south-east, and the bold crag 
of Mungeza, the Vindhya hills south-west, and the broad area of the 
amphitheatre at our feet, either naked, or covered with low jungle, or 
partially cultivated. At the top we emerged on a dead flat plain, or 
table-land, quite level, except at the crest of the pass and along the 
verge of the precipices, where it is broken into rocky hillocks, or broad 
pyramids of flat slabs of coarse-grained sandstone. By dark we 
reached the village of Roump, beyond the top of the pass, and arrived 
at a small tent which Mr. Felle had pitched for us. 
March 4th.— Mounted a small, fast, and woefully high-trotting ele- 
phant, and started for Mr. Felle’s Bungalow, at Shahgungh. The 
country here is totally unlike that below, and though higher, yet, owing : 
to the better soil and abundance of water, it is more fertile. Miles are 
covered with Rice-fields, irrigated from wells, whence the water is 
drawn by long swing-poles and buckets, as we see in Holland and at 
Yarmouth, with which locality, for dead flatness, the country may be 
compared. Tanks, too, are numerous. Scattered topes of Mango and 
Tamarind everywhere meet the eye, indicating villages, which are all, 
however, poor and small. 
'This table-land, you must remember, is a continuation of that at 
Rotasghur, but not quite so high (that being 1800 feet, and this 
1300), and very little below the common level of Behar. Here the 
country is a dead flat, with no hills, and the strata are horizontal beds 
of sandstone. Behar, again, is formed of highly inclined gneiss, and 
similar primitive rocks, either elevated above the mean level into 
ridges, or starting up in bold mountains like Paras-Nath. How curious 
it is, that the mean elevation of these two totally different and widely 
distant plateaux, should be the same! Of the main differences in their 
vegetation, the cause must be sought in the soil. A flat ledge of sand- 
stone here retains the moisture, and gives rise to no rivers that shall 
wash away the alluvium. The inclined beds of crumbling gneiss or 
