CHAPTER VIII. 



THE HIGHER NARBADA. 



JuBBULPUR is now rather an important place, being the 

 point of junction of the two lines of railway which 

 between them connect the political with the commercial 

 capital of India, Calcutta with Bombay, and over which 

 pass all the passengers, and much of the goods, in 

 transit between England and Upper India. At the 

 time of which I write it was a small civil and military 

 station, of which few who had not been there knew any- 

 thing, except that it was situated somewhere in the 

 wilds of Central India. I remember when we first got 

 our orders to march there from Upper India no one 

 could give us a route to it. It was trooped from 

 Madras at that time, and so of course the Bengal 

 authorities could not be expected to know anything 

 about it. We found it the pleasautest of Indian 

 stations ; situated in a green hollow among low rocky 

 granite hills always covered with verdure ; with tidy 

 hard roads and plenty of greensward about them ; 

 with commodious bungalows embowered in magnificent 

 clumps of bamboo ; remarkable for the delicacy and 

 abundance of its fruits and other garden products, 

 including the pineapple, which will not grow anywhere 

 else in Central India ; and withal, from its land-locked 



