2 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



almost impossible to delineate on ordinary maps of India 

 the features of inferior ranges. 



Yet in the very centre of India there exists a 

 considerable region to which the term Highlands, which 

 I have adopted for a title, is strictly applicable ; and in 

 which are numerous peaks and ranges, for which the 

 term " mountain " would, in any other country, be used. 

 Several of the great rivers of India have their first 

 sources in this elevated region, and pour their waters 

 into the sea on either side of the peninsula — to the 

 north the Son commingling with the Ganges, to the 

 east the Mahanadi, flowing independently to the Bay 

 of Bengal, to the south some of the principal feeders of 

 the Godavari, and to the west the Narbada and the 

 Tapti, taking parallel courses to tlie Arabian Gulf. If 

 the reader will seek the head-waters of these rivers 

 on the map, he wall find the region I am about to 

 describe. To be more precise, it lies on the 22nd 

 parallel of north latitude, and between the 76th and 

 82nd of east longitude. It forms the central and 

 culminating section of a ridge of elevated country which 

 stretches across the peninsula, from near Calcutta to 

 near Bombay, and separates Northern India, or Hindostan 

 proper, from the Deccan, or country of the south. The 

 traveller by the Great Indian Peninsular Railway from 

 Bombay to Calcutta, after some 275 miles of his journey, 

 will come to a point where the line branches into two. 

 The northern branch leads him on up the Narbada 

 valley, and so, by Alahabad and the Gangetic valley, to 

 the City of Palaces. If he takes the southern branch 

 instead, he will be landed at Nagpiir, a city in the very 

 heart of India, and its present terminal station. Between 

 these two branches lies a triangle of country in which is 



