CHAPTER IX 



THE sIl forests 



Above Mandla, the valley of the Narbada opens out 

 into a wide upland country, the main river, between this 

 and Jubbulpiir, joined by few and unimportant tributaries, 

 here radiating like the fingers of a hand, and draining 

 the rainfall of an extensive triangular plateau, known as 

 the Mandla district. These converging valleys rise in 

 elevation towards the south, where they terminate in a 

 transverse range of hills, which sends down spurs between 

 them, subdividing the drainage. The valleys themselves 

 also successively rise in general elevation, by a step-like 

 formation from west to east. Furthest to the west, that 

 of the Banjar river possesses a general height of about 

 2000 feet ; next is that drained by the Halon and the Phen 

 at about 2300; still further to the east the basin of the 

 Khormer has risen to about 2800 feet ; and furthest east of 

 all is the plateau of Amarkantak, the chief source of the 

 Narbada, which attains a general altitude of about 3300 

 feet, with smaller flat-topped elevations reaching to 4000 

 feet above the sea. The hilly range which runs along the 

 southern border of the district is called the M;fkat, and 

 overlooks, in a steep descent to the southward, a flat low- 

 lying country called Chattisgarh, or " the land of thirty-six 

 forts." 



The elevated cradle of the infant Narbada, thus described, 

 contains within its outer circle of hills an area of not less 

 than 7000 square miles ; much of it, of course, of a broken 

 and unculturable character, but comprising also in the val- 

 leys much of what may properly be called Adrgin soil of the 

 finest quahty. The M;fkat range, and the radiating spurs 

 which separate the plateau, are mostly clothed with forests 

 of the sal tree, which, here as elsewhere, almost monopolises 



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