THE MAHADEO HILLS. 93 



pass (Kanji Ghat) has never, I believe, been traversed 

 by any baggage animal. The view from the edge of the 

 plateau, in almost any direction, is singularly fine ; and 

 a still more extensive sweep is commanded from the top 

 of the higher peaks. 



To the south, as far as the eye can see, lie range 

 upon range of forest-covered hills, tumbled in wild 

 confusion. To the east a long line of rampart-like 

 cliifs marks the southern face of the Mahadeo range, 

 the deep red of their sandstone formation contrasting 

 finely with the intense green of the bamboo vegetation, 

 out of which they rise. Here and there they shoot into 

 peaks of bare red rock, many of which have a peculiar 

 and almost fantastic appearance, owing to the irregular 

 weatherino^ of their material — beds of coarse sandstone 

 horizontally streaked by darker bands of hard vitrified 

 ferruoinous earth. Lookino; across this wall of rock, to 

 the north-east, a long perspective of forest-covered hills 

 is seen, the nearer ones seeming to be part of the Puch- 

 murree plateau, though really separated from it by an 

 enormous rift in the rock, the further ranges sinking 

 gradually in elevation, till, faint and blue in the far 

 distance, gleams the level plain of the Narbada valley. 

 Standing on the eastern edge of the plateau, again, the 

 observer hangs over a sheer descent of 2,000 feet of 

 rock, leading beyond, in long green slopes, down to a 

 flat and forest-covered valley. Its width may be six or 

 seven miles, and beyond it is seen another range of 

 hills rising in a long yellow grass-covered slope, dotted 

 with the black boulders, and ending in the scarped tops 

 that mark the trap formation. That is the plateau of 

 Motiir (Mohtoor), with which the general continuation 

 of the Satpiira range again commences, after the break 



