INTRODUCTOKY. 5 



section (the Satpuras proper) is cleft in two by a deep 

 valley, and drains inwards, forming the river Tapti, 

 which, like the Narbada, flows for but a short part 

 of its course within the hills before it leaves them 

 altogether, and runs along their southern face to the 

 sea. Such, however, is the tortuous formation of these 

 mountains, that their streams frequently surprise one 

 by turning short round in their courses, and making 

 off towards the wrong river, as if they had suddenly 

 changed their minds. The drainage of the great central 

 Mahadeo block is a striking example of this. Two 

 streams rise near its southern face, the Denwa and the 

 Sonbadra. Both flow nearly south, away from the 

 Narbada, for a short way, when the former turns to the 

 east, and the latter to the west. Presently, however, 

 they find two vast cracks in the range, and turn sharp 

 to the north, passing through them to the northern 

 face, where they unite and fall into the Narbada after 

 all. 



This extensive region emerged from the outer dark- 

 ness that shrouds the early history of such immense 

 tracts in India only within the last three centuries. 

 Before then we have nothing to grope by in the thick 

 darkness but the will-o'-the-wisp lights of tradition, and 

 the scarcely more reliable indications of a few ruinous 

 remains and vague inscriptions. The aborigines have 

 never possessed a written language, and the Hindu races, 

 who have within the last few centuries peopled the 

 valleys that surround and interpenetrate the hills, have 

 allowed their literature to remain the monopoly of a 

 priestly caste, whose very existence was bound up in 

 the necessity of falsifying all history. Their only 

 writings which wear even the remotest semblance of 



