310 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



the end of the month the clouds began to bank up into deep 

 purple masses behind the higher peaks, and at night lightning 

 played incessantly round the horizon. By great exertions we 

 got the house roofed just in time to hang a bison's frontlet 

 over the door, and christen it " Bison Lodge," before the full 

 force of the monsoon broke upon the plateau on the last day 

 of June. I must not now tell of the many pleasant days and 

 jovial nights passed between those four walls in after years, 

 when the fire blazing in the arched grate I had builded with 

 my own hands, and the jorum of whisky toddy imported from 

 my native hills, deluded us into the belief that we were far 

 away from the exile, if still a pleasant exile, of the highlands 

 of Central India. Such a terrific storm I never saw as on the 

 night of the breaking of the monsoon, crash after crash seem- 

 ing to burst within the rooms, while a blaze of green light- 

 ning incessantly lit up the whole features of the hill. It lasted 

 about the whole night, and nearly four inches of rain fell 

 along with it, but on its clearing up in the morning, such is 

 the beautiful drainage of this plateau that in less than an hour 

 a horse could have galloped over it comfortably in any direc- 

 tion. Eain clouds continued to shroud the higher peaks, and 

 roll round the edges of the plateau, the whole time I remained 

 on the hill, but we never had another heavy storm, and, what 

 is very unusual at such altitudes, the clouds never invaded 

 the centre of the plateau at all. I had repeated returns of 

 the fever, and neither could my people shake it off. Con- 

 veniences to help recovery were also wanting, and I left 

 the plateau on the 20th of July to march to Jubbulpur. It 

 was a melancholy procession down the hill, that march of my 

 gaunt and fever-stricken followers, crowded on the backs of 

 the elephants that carried them in several trips to the carts 

 that awaited them below. 



