1S75.] T. H. Hendley — An Account of the Maiwdr Bliils. 365 



by the direct rays of the sun. Three or four huge dykes, like walls of 

 masonry, parallel and close to each other, extend across the valley, and have 

 the appearance of having been broken through by the river. In stage number 

 two, the huge Som Ghat, with a torrent bed on one side, is traversed ; from 

 the summit a beautiful view of the wildest and roughest part of the district 

 is obtained. The hills are covered with jangal, the bamboo, the true teak, 

 &c, with a dense growth of underwood. 



Through the third stage the path is very tortuous, the country more 

 undulating; water is abundant, and the scenery more park-like. Bhawalwara, 

 a Rajput village, is now entered ; and the fourth stage, a very varied one, 

 with a pass or two of no great height, a winding road, a lake or two, numer- 

 ous rivulets with rough boulders in their beds and a peculiar dyke, brings 

 the traveller to Khairwara. This cantonment stands on the banks of a 

 small stream in a valley, the hills adjacent are bare and rounded, the Dhak 

 (Butea frondosa) flourishes everywhere, and presents a most glorious spec- 

 tacle when in bloom. 



The second road is the one which runs from Udaipur to Khairwara 

 and thence to Gujarat. The whole of the track between the first mentioned 

 places, about 60 miles long, passes through a similar but rather more open 

 country than that on the Kotra side. The villages of Rakaknath and 

 Jawara merit a separate notice. 



At the end of the second stage, Parshad, a defile leads to the plains of 

 Chawnd and thence to the Debar Lake, the largest sheet of artificial water 

 in India. Samblaji, or Samara, on the Gujarat side, until quite lately was only 

 reached by an exceedingly rough road passing through what was called 

 emphatically the ' nal' ; here is a lake with a very ancient temple much resort- 

 ed to by the Bhils, especially at the time of the great winter fair. A good 

 road, in such a district the best civilizer, is now almost completed all the 

 way from Udaipur to Gujarat. Dungarpur, the capital of the Rawul of the 

 State of that name, the chief of the Aharia or more ancient branch of the 

 Udaipur house, is fourteen miles from Khairwara, and is reached by a road 

 passing through a district in which the Ber, or Zizyphus j itjuba, flourishes in 

 great luxuriance. I was much struck with this before reading in General 

 Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, that this part of the Peninsula 

 (Idar) probably derived its Sanskrit name from this tree. 



Geology. — The rocks are the same as those of the main Aravali range 

 system, and are chiefly metamorphic. Capt. Dangerfield in a map attached to 

 a paper on the Geological formation of this district gives the order of strata 

 as follows, beginning to the south of Khairwara. 1. Sandstone. 2. Horn- 

 stone Porphyry (noticed at Khairwara). 3. Granite. <A. Gneiss. 5. Mica 

 clay, chlorite slates (these about Jawara), and again Granite at Udaipur. 

 Blue and red marls with rotten clay stones are very noticeable near 

 Khairwara and beyond Jawara, at which places the rocks are very hard. 



