70 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE 



Leaving Goolburga (where there is a magnificent old fort, on 

 one of the bastions of which is mounted a huge pivot cannon, 

 29 feet 10 inches long, and where there are some curious old 

 domed tombs), a few miles, and the geological features change. 

 Sudden as the passing from day to night in this country, 

 where we miss our sweet English twilight, is the change from 

 the round weather-worn trap boulders of dark dingy hue to the 

 pearl grey limestone which shows above the surface at eccentric 

 angles — here, level as a billiard table in layers so true that im- 

 mense blocks or thin slabs with perfectly paralled beds can be 

 procured without difficulty — there, heaved up, with the seams 

 pointing to the sky, rugged, fractured and distorted. But 

 the general aspect of the country remains unchanged. The 

 monotonous undulations still depress one, the absence of trees 

 is still conspicuous, and the want of cultivation is still more 

 marked than in the country we have already passed through. 

 No irrigation, no gardens. 



The only improvement that strikes a passing observer is in 

 the village huts, which, being built of and roofed with the 

 delicate-coloured limestone, look clean and glistening — an 

 illusion soon dissipated on a closer examination. 



Here, as indeed all along the route from Poona, almost every 

 village shows traces of fortification, sometimes in a fair state of 

 preservation, but oftener in ruins. Numerous prettily-shaped 

 Martello towers are observed, and every village except the quite 

 modern ones has a dense belt of pi'ickly pear surrounding it; 

 their defence against the hordes of horsemen that perpetually 

 surged through these districts, overwhelming them in a sea of 

 anarchy and desolation until the strong hand of the British 

 Government established peace and order. 



Yet a little further on, just 18 miles through the limestone 

 basin, and another change occurs equally suddenly. The whole 

 surface is one continuous plain, more thickly cultivated and 

 with a regular fall towards the Kistna River, into which flows the 

 Bheema with which we have been marching. Before reaching 

 Nalwar, 1,325 feet above the sea, the limestone disappears, and 

 the whole plain is studded with granite hills of the most abrupt 

 and grotesque forms. 



East of the line, abreast of the village of Nulwar, commences 

 a continuous range, extending in a south-easterly direction to 

 beyond Koilconda, whilst isolated hills are seen right and left 

 of the line as far as Raichore, feet above the sea, the 



most southern limit of our range of observation. 



Such rugged, wild-looking hills 1 as though gigantic devils had 

 amused themselves by pitching up heaps of immense blocks, 

 haphazard. Stones balanced one upon the other in the most 



