THE TEAK REGIOl^ 179 



while by day a tMck pall of smoke hangs over the valley. 

 Near the scene the air is stifling and thick with falling 

 flakes of ash. Wild animals have fled the neighbourhood ; 

 and clouds of insects rise before the advancing flames, 

 to be devoured by myriads of birds collected seemingly 

 from every end of the country. Innumerable snakes and 

 noxious vermin of aU sorts perish in the fire, including 

 many of the curious grass snakes of these regions, which a 

 diligent search will frequently discover twined among the 

 matted masses of the spear-grass. It is a harmless 

 creature, living on insects, and changes its colour from 

 green to yellow, along with the grass. When the fires are 

 burnt out, the spectacle is a dismal one indeed. HiU-side 

 after hiU-side of blackness, relieved only here and there 

 by a long streak of white ashes where a prostrate trunk 

 has been consumed, and by the wilderness of Salei skeletons, 

 scorched at the base, and above more yellow and ghastly 

 than ever. 



Yet, even in the heart of those parts of the basaltic 

 region to which this description most fittingly applies, 

 there are few tracts where, at a little distance, some oasis 

 will not be found. The larger ravines are often filled with 

 clumps of bamboo which never entirely lose their verdure ; 

 and here and there a sheltered valley wiU be met, where 

 there is either a pool of water, or moisture not far below 

 the surface, with its fringe of verdure, and a few Mhowa 

 or Mango trees, perhaps marking the site of some old 

 village, deserted long ago beyond the memory of living 

 man. In the central valley of the Tapti also will be 

 found at intervals bays of rich, deep soil, with a moist 

 substratum that is never entirely parched up, and carrying 

 a greener grass which it is hard to burn, and often a covering 

 of forest trees. Most of these tracts have been at one time 

 reclaimed to the plough, and thickly populated. That 

 was in the days when the Mahomedan Viceroy of the 

 Deccan held court at the city of Burhanpiir, some fifty 

 miles lower down the valley, and great armies marching 

 between the Deccan and BOndostan had to be fed. The 

 bays in the valley are still dotted over with the sites of 

 the villages of those times, and with the ruined forts and 



