THE MaHADEO HILLS. 91 



a thousand feet of steep descent, down a track worn by the 

 feet of pilgrims, leads to|the entrance of a gorge, whose aspect 

 is singularly adapted to impress the imagination of the pilgrim 

 to these sacred hills. A dense canopy of the wild mango tree, 

 overlaid and interlaced by the tree-like limbs of the giant 

 creeper,* almost shuts out the sun ; strange shapes of tree 

 ferns and thickets of dank and rotting vegetation cumber the 

 path ; a chalybeate stream, covered by a film of metallic scum, 

 reddens the ooze through which it slowly percolates ; a gloom 

 like twilight shrouds the bottom of the valley, from out of 

 which rises on either hand a towering crag of deep red colour, 

 from the summit of which stretch the ghostly arms of the 

 white and naked Sterculia urens, a tree that looks as if the 

 megatherium might have climbed its uncouth and ghastly 

 branches at the birth of the world. Further on the gorge 

 narrows to a mere cleft between the high cliffs, wholly desti- 

 tute of vegetation, and strewn with great boulders. Climbing 

 over these, and wading through the waters of a shallow stream, 

 the pilgrim at length reaches a cavern in the rock, the sides 

 and bottom of which have been, by some peculiar water action, 

 worn into the semblance of gigantic matted locks of hair ; 

 while deep below the floor of the cavern, in the bowels of the 

 rock, is heard the labouring of imprisoned waters shaking the 

 cave. It is small wonder that such a natural marvel as this 

 should be a chosen dwelling place for the god to whom all these 

 mountains are sacred, and that it forms one of the most holy 

 and indispensable points in the circuit which the devout pilgrim 

 must perform. 



The place has also a slight historical interest. During the 

 last of our struggles with the Mar^th^s, App Salieb Bhonsla, 

 Raja of Nagpiir, on his way to an exile justly earned by re- 



* Bauhinia scandem. 



