28o THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



to that of Hindu conquerors. Its waters in the dry 

 season are here placid and clear, and one can row in a 

 small boat lazily under the white cliffs, well polished 

 ridges of rock, like white whales' backs, alternating with 

 black basaltic pinnacles showing over the green surface. 

 The rocks at each side are water- worn from top to bottom, 

 and their solid substance cut straight down and smoothed. 

 Surely so tremendous a cleft could not have been eroded 

 by such a sluggish stream. One must view the Nerbudda 

 in the rains to understand the force of its rushing waters. 

 Between the territories of the ancient Gond races and the 

 mountains of Mahadeo on its south bank, and the king- 

 dom of Bhopal, celebrated for its Sanchi topes and its 

 Begum, and the Vindhya hills to the north, the great 

 river flows ever westward. At Hoshangabad its banks are 

 50 to 60 feet high above the rocky stream-bed. There is 

 a full mile across the river from bank to bank. The stream 

 in the dry season occupies but a tenth part of its channel, 

 and is not too deep for elephants to ford it easily. It is 

 at the height of the monsoon that the grandeur of this 

 mighty floodway is properly seen. Then the banks are fuU 

 up to within a few feet of the top, with a great rushing 

 sea of turbid water. Viewed from the top of what were 

 before high cliffs, the river races onward just beneath 

 one's feet ; and the whole landscape seems to glide away 

 westward, only the distant blue hills of Bhopal appearing 

 against the sky above the moving sea. Far out in the 

 centre of the current a great line of floating objects goes 

 along. Great trees torn up by the roots sail steadily 

 onward, their heads and straggling limbs and branching 

 roots rolling alternately above the raging torrent. Houses 

 and logs of timber, and the bodies of cattle and sambur 

 deer, and even human remains, float away in constant 

 procession, carried by the resistless force of raging waters 



