4 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



hill and a small area ; others like a group of many hills, 

 which support, like buttresses, on their summits, large 

 level or undulating plains. From these again he will 

 find shooting up still higher, a good many other solitary 

 flat-topped hills, reaching the height of nearly 3,500 

 feet ; some of which in like manner unite into plateaux 

 at about the same elevation. Yet higher than these, 

 but never assuming the character of a plateau, he will 

 see here and there a peak rising to nearly 5,000 feet 

 above the sea. 



As is usual, the inhabitants of the hills themselves 

 liave no general name for the whole chain ; each in- 

 dividual hill or minor range being called by a local 

 name derived from the nearest village, or the species 

 of tree it bears, or a god, or a river, or some other 

 accidental circumstance. The Hindus of the plains have 

 several terms for its different sections, calling the most 

 easterly the Mykal, the centre the Mahadeo, and the 

 western the Satpura Hills. Geographers have applied 

 the name Satpiira to the entire range ; and the name is 

 perhaps as appropriate as any which could be selected. 



The watershed of these mountains varies in direction 

 in their several sections. In the extreme east the rans^o 

 terminates in a bluff promontory with a precipitous face 

 to the south, throwing the whole of the drainage of a 

 vast area towards the north. This is the cradle of the 

 Narbada river, which soon leaves its parent hills, and 

 flows through a wide valley of its own along the 

 northern face of the range. In the centre the rano^e 

 culminates in the bold group of the Mahadeos, crowned 

 by the Puchmurree peaks, throwing the drainage almost 

 equally to the north and south, the former into the 

 Narbada, and the latter into the Godavari. The western 



