4 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



Narbada river, which soon leaves its parent hills, and 

 flows through a wide valley of its own along the northern 

 face of the range. In the centre the range culminates 

 in the bold group of the Mahadeos, crowned by the Puch- 

 murree peaks, throwing the drainage almost equally to 

 the north and south, tie former into the Narbada, and 

 the latter into the Godavari. The western section (the 

 Satpiiras proper) is cleft in two by a deep valley, and drains 

 inwards, forming the river Tapti, which, like the Narbada, 

 flows for but a short part of its course within the hills, 

 before it leaves them altogether, and runs along their 

 southern face to the sea. Such, however, is the tortuous 

 formation of these mountains, that their streams frequently 

 surprise one by turning short round in their courses, and 

 making off towards the wrong river, as if they had suddenly 

 changed their minds. The drainage of the great central 

 Mahadeo block is a striking example of this. Two streams 

 rise near its southern face, the Denwa and the Sonbadra. 

 Both flow nearly south, away from the Narbada, for a 

 short way, when the former turns to the east, and the 

 latter to the west. Presently, however, they find two 

 vast cracks in the range, and turn sharp to the north, 

 passing through them to the northern face, where they 

 unite and fall into the Narbada after all. 



This extensive region emerged from the outer darkness 

 that shrouds the early history of such immense tracts in 

 India only Avithin the last three centuries. Before then 

 we have nothing to grope by in the thick darkness but 

 the will-o'-the-wisp lights of tradition, and the scarcely 

 more reliable indications of a few ruinous remains and 

 vague inscriptions. The aborigines have never possessed 

 a written language, and the Hindu races, who have 

 within the last few centuries peopled the valleys that 

 surround and interpenetrate the hills, have allowed their 

 literature to remain the monopoly of a priestly caste, 

 whose very existence was bound up in the necessity of 

 falsifying all history. Their only writings which wear 

 even the remotest semblance of history — ^the Mahabharat 

 and Eamayan epics — speak of all India south of the Jamna 

 as a vast wilderness inhabited by hostile demons and 



