THE SAX FORESTS. 357 



of what may properly be called virgin soil of the finest 

 quality. The M^kat range, and the radiating spurs which 

 separate the plateau, are mostly clothed with forests of the sal 

 tree, which, here as elsewhere, almost monopolizes the parts 

 where it grows. The saj alone grows in any quantity along 

 with it. Some of the hills are covered with the ordinary 

 species of forest trees of other parts ; the species of vegeta- 

 tion appearing, as I have said before, to depend much on the 

 geological formation. 



The valleys themselves are generally open and free from all 

 underwood, dotted here and there by belts and islands of the 

 noble sal tree, and altogether possessing much of the character 

 ascribed to the American prairies. In their lowest parts the 

 soil is deep, black, and rich, covered with a growth of strong 

 tall grasses. As the valleys merge into the hilly ranges, the 

 soils become lighter and redder, from the lateritic topping 

 that here overlies the basaltic and granitic bases of the hills ; 

 the grasses are less rank and coarse ; and in many places 

 springs of clear cold water bubble up, clothing the country 

 with belts of perpetual verdure, and conferring on it an 

 aspect of freshness very remarkable in a country of such 

 comparatively small elevation in the centre of India. Every- 

 thing combines to deprive this region of the sterile and 

 inhospitable appearance worn by even most upland tracts 

 during the hot season. The sal tree is almost the only ever- 

 green forest tree in India. Throughout the summer its 

 glossy dark-green foliage reflects the light in a thousand 

 vivid tints : and just when all other vegetation is at its worst, 

 a few weeks before the gates of heaven are opened in the 

 annual monsoon, the sal selects its opportunity of bursting 

 into a fresh garment of the brightest and softest green. The 

 traveller who has lingered till that late period in these wilds 



