88 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



singularly fine ; and a still more extensive sweep is com- 

 manded from the tops 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 cliffs mark the southern face 

 of the Mahadeo range, the deep red of their sandstone forma- 

 tion 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 irre- 

 gular weathering of their material beds of coarse sandstone 

 horizontally streaked by darker bands of hard vitrified ferru- 

 ginous earth. Looking 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 Puchmurree 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 

 2000 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 Motur (Mohtoor), with 

 which the general continuation of the Satpura range again 

 commences, after the break in it occasioned by the Mahadeo 

 group. On this side, the forest that clothes the valley and 

 the nearer slopes presents a very dark green and yet brilliant 

 colouring, which will be noted as differing from the vegetation 

 in any other direction. This is the Sal forest, which I have 



