io RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



The road we follow has been built to facilitate the timber 

 trade of the Government forests in these regions, and it 

 rises gently for the first five miles to the lower foot-hills. 

 Here the hillsides, barren-looking at a distance, are seen 

 to be covered with long, dry grass and a thick coppice 

 of small jungle trees. The road now begins to wind its 

 way through park-like glades, the hills enclosing them on 

 either side growing even higher and steeper, till, some ten 

 miles out, we are traversing a deep-cut valley. Thicker 

 jungle now clothes its heights, rearing up precipitously to 

 right and left ; large orchid-clasped evergreen trees cast 

 a deep shadow across the roadway ; a little red barking- 

 deer the rabbit of Indian woodland leaps coughing 

 into the grass ; and the clear waters of a now shrunken 

 mountain torrent steal gurgling through their bed of 

 boulders from sunlight to shade. 



Shortly the road begins to climb abruptly and zigzag- 

 wise upwards. An hour later we have surmounted the 

 ascent, and a cool breeze blows refreshingly in our faces 

 as we canter along on the level, three thousand feet above 

 the sea. 



A gap in the woody hills now comes into view not far 

 ahead, and, as we enter and pass it, the road, of which 

 glimpses may be caught through the trees as it goes 

 winding down below us, is seen to turn to the left and 

 descend into a deep glen. The more open forests have 

 been left behind, and the mountain-sides below us and 

 on the far side of the valley are hidden by a much thicker, 

 denser growth, principally composed of teak, and now 

 glowing golden brown and green in the failing light. 

 Far below, winding along the bottom of the glen, runs 

 a long fringe of taller, darker forest trees, the glint of a 

 solitary pool showing far off among them. The valley 

 before us forms the head-waters of the Sfpna river, itself 

 an afBuent of the greater Tapti. Widening out as it 

 recedes mile on mile westward, it leads the eye away 



