404 THE HIGHLANDS OF CE2s^TRAL INDIA. 



uuinterrupted by anytLing but the blue haze of distance 

 which limits the vision. Far below to the south, 

 lying like a chessboard, is the open cultivated plain of 

 Chattis'garh, stretching out to the uttermost range of 

 vision. To the east and north, 2,000 feet below, appears 

 a flat sea of greenery, broken here and there by an 

 isolated peak that appears to reach the level of the 

 observer. In the faint distance beyond rises another 

 wall of rock, visible only on a clear day as a faint 

 violet-coloured shade across the sky. The green plain 

 is a vast forest of sal, unbroken by tillage, and scarcely 

 inhabited by man, and the rocky rampart beyond is the 

 buttress of another table-land called Sirgiija, the land 

 of the K61 aborigines, and beyond the limits of our 

 province. My mission for the succeeding six months 

 was to explore this vast region of sal forest, lying to 

 the north and east of Amarkantak, and stretching far 

 beyond and to the south of the plain of Chattis'garh, in 

 the semi-independent country called the Garhjat States. 



Over all this country roams the wild buffalo, and in 

 the forests north and east of Amarkantak were then 

 found large herds of wild elephants, which descended at 

 the ripening of the crops of Chattis'garh to the skirts of 

 the forest, doing immense damage, and forming a serious 

 obstacle to the cultivation of the country. To penetrate 

 to their haunts, ascertain their numbers, and propose 

 means for their destruction, was another object of our 

 expedition. 



In the end of January I descended the Eajadh-ar 

 pass from the MandM district, and marched across the 

 Chattis'garh plain, where antelope, ducks, snipe, etc., 

 afforded perpetual occupation for the gun, to the station 

 of Rai'pur, where I met the Chief Commissioner's camp 



