260 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



cool in these high regions. Towards the end of the month 

 the clouds began to bank up into deep purple masses behind 

 the higher peaks, and at night lightning played incessantly- 

 round the horizon. By great exertions we got the house 

 roofed just in time to hang a bison's frontlet over the door, 

 and christen it " Bison Lodge," before the full force of the 

 monsoon broke upon the plateau on the last day of June. 

 I must not now tell of the many pleasant days and jovial 

 nights passed between those four walls in after years, 

 when the fire blazing in the arched grate I had builded 

 with my own hands, and the jorum of whisky toddy im- 

 ported from my native hills, deluded us into the behef that 

 we were far away from the exile, if still a pleasant exile, 

 of the highlands of Central India. Such a terrific storm 

 I never saw as on the night of the breaking of the monsoon, 

 crash after crash seeming to burst within the rooms, while 

 a blaze of green lightning incessantly lit up the whole 

 features of the hill. It lasted about the whole night, and 

 nearly four inches of rain fell along with it, but on its 

 clearing up in the morning, such is the beautiful drainage 

 of this plateau that in less than an hour a horse could have 

 galloped over it comfortably in any direction. Rain- 

 clouds continued to shroud the higher peaks, and roll 

 round the edges of the plateau, the whole time I remained 

 on the hill, but we never had another heavy storm, and, 

 what is very unusual at such altitudes, the clouds never 

 invaded the centre of the plateau at all. I had repeated 

 returns of the fever, and neither could my people shake it 

 ofi. Conveniences to help recovery were also wanting, 

 and I left the plateau on the 20th of July to march to 

 Jubbulpur. It was a melancholy procession down the 

 hill, that march of my gaunt and fever-stricken followers, 

 crowded on the backs of the elephants that carried them 

 in several trips to the carts that awaited them below. 



Another oflS.cer relieved me at Puchmurree, and re- 

 mained nearly till the end of the rainy season ; meteoro- 

 logical observations being kept up, in order to compare 

 with others which were being taken at the same time by a 

 party resident on the rival plateau of Motur. The result 

 was that a mean temperature of about 73 degrees, and a 



