THE TEAK REGIOX. 241 



about 2,000 feet, it would no doubt grow tea and 

 coffee well. Now it is utterly waste, the lazy Bheels 

 being satisfied with their subsidy from Government, 

 while want of roads, and probably a bad climate, deter 

 the cultivators of the neighbouring plains. There is 

 plenty of water on the top, and one day it will doubtless 

 be the seat of a considerable settlement. 



At Gharri T. went out in the evening, and found 

 two sambar stags feeding on the pods of some acacias on 

 the site of a deserted village. Being a capital stalker 

 •and a good shot, he got close in upon them, and bagged 

 both with a right and left shot. Next day we crossed 

 the plateau to a place called Bingara, near which T. had 

 a survey station to put up. The road for some distance 

 lay over a tolerably level plain of black soil, covered by 

 a thin scrub of teak poles and thorny bushes ; but pre- 

 sently, leaving the plateau, passed on to a very narrow 

 ridge which forms the backbone of these singular hills 

 throughout their length. In some places an exceedingly 

 steep slope of a thousand feet or so led down from this 

 saddle-back to the plains on either side, leaving scarcely 

 room for the path we were treading. It was a terrible 

 business gettini]: the baofo-ao-e camels along these narrow 

 places, studded as they were with trees, and encumbered 

 with boulders of trap ; and though we had a number of 

 Bheels with axes to clear a passage for them they did 

 not get in till nightfall. The views at the turns where 

 the plains on both sides could be seen were remarkable, 

 though scarcely to be called picturesque. At our feet 

 steep hill-sides of crumbling basalt, covered with long 

 yellow grass beaten almost flat by the western blasts 

 that sweep the hills at this season, and studded over 

 with large black boulders and the naked yellow stems 



