INTRODUCTORY. 5 



Narbada and the latter into the Grodavari. The western sec- 

 tion (the Satpiiras 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 for- 

 mation of these mountains, that their streams frequently sur- 

 prise 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 MaMdeo 

 block is a striking example of this. Two streams rise near its 

 southern face, the Denwa* and the S6nbadra\ 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. Pre- 

 sently, 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 darkness 

 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 history the Mahd- 

 bharat and Ramayan epics speak of all India south of the 



