236 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



partly through a forest, I went on an elephant. Pre- 

 sently I came to a rao; it was deep, and had precipitous 

 sides, but was tolerably wide ; it was also nearly dry. I 

 crossed it, visited the village, and returned. About an 

 hour and a half had elapsed when on my way back I 

 reached the rao ; but in the meantime there had been 

 a heavy downpour of rain in the mountains. I found 

 the rao now half filled with water ; the water was at 

 least five feet deep, and was flowing with a force that 

 only an elephant could have withstood. 



The other case was even more remarkable ; it 

 occurred in the rao I have already mentioned as lying 

 between Dehra and the tea plantations. Lower down 

 this rao widens considerably, to the extent, I should 

 say, of over a quarter of a mile. At this part the high- 

 road from Dehra to the Jumna crosses the rao. Now 

 it happened one morning during the rainy season that 

 a small covered cart drawn by two bullocks was pro- 

 ceeding along the road over the rao ; inside the cart 

 were a woman and a child. When the cart entered it 

 the rao was nearly dry, but before the cart reached the 

 other side a rush of water from the mountains came down. 

 The cart was overturned, and, with its occupants and 

 the two bullocks and their driver, it was swept away 

 and carried down the rao for the distance of about half 

 a mile, and there left stranded as the flood rushed on. 

 The driver, the two bullocks, and the woman and child 

 were all drowned. 



After these examples of the violence of the torrents 

 in the Doon during the rains, I will give an illustration 

 of the rapid growth of vegetation during the same 



