1840.] March from Brimhan Ghat to Umurkuntuk. 899 



The Min of 18 days of April gave 58 and the Max 90 — med. 74. 

 Ditto all May „ 62 ditto ditto 94— med. 78. 



Ditto 24 days June „ 71 ditto ditto 95 — med. 83. 



Near the temple in which is the goddess of this river, is a Beejuck, but so 

 defaced and broken that little of it could be decyphered by the most zealous 

 antiquary ; on the floor of an open temple is a small image, which the 

 pundits assured me was that of Rewa Naick, a Bunjara, to whom 

 the goddess appeared in a dream, and directed him to clear the site of the 

 present Koond, then a dense mass of bamboo jungle ; the date Sumbut 922* 

 is very plain, and is within ten years of the period of the copper plate dug up at 

 Koombhee, and forwarded by me (Asiatic Journal, for 1839). The animals 

 met with on the Mekul hills are wild buffaloes, Gour, Sciurus Elphinstonii, 

 Buceros Malabaricus, and on the table land of Umurkuntuk the solitary 

 snipe, none of which are generally found in the valley of the Nerbudda 

 east of Mundlah. I shall now proceed with the notes of the march into 

 the Sohagpoor plains. 



Hurree Tola, nine and a quarter miles. The road from the Koond at Umur- 

 kuntuk lies in a northerly direction, crossing a ridge of jungle and grass into 

 a small valley, in which flows the Burat nulla, and at six miles is the crest of 

 the ghat called the Punkhee ghat ; it is long, but no where steep or difficult, 

 the whole formation laterite, resting on basalt. On reaching the bottom 

 you are- in an extensive grass plain, with peaks of the Mekul Hills rising 

 in the distance ; the village a few huts, with the Johilla river flowing through 

 the plain at the distance of a mile. The jungle on this side of the hiUs is 

 not near so dense, or the trees so large, as on the Jogee ghat side ; the sal 

 trees fewer and smaller. 



To Lukhora, thirteen miles. This distance is of one uniform feature, an ex- 

 tensive undulated grass plain, intersected by streams and springs in every di- 

 rection, with the Johilla flowing through it, into which all the others run. 

 The soil laterite, and all the beds of the nuUas compact basalt. 



Pureye, fourteen miles. The first 7 miles the country of the same nature as 

 that on descending from the table land, if any thing rather more undulated; 

 about seven and a half miles cross the Johilla, a fine stream, the bed is basalt 

 mixed with some limestone No. 91. At Bouraha village about 9, the grassy 

 plain may be said to terminate, as the road now becomes a constant series 

 of bad stony ascents and descents of trap boulders, dense tree and grass jungle; 

 at thirteen and a half the Backan nulla is passed, its bed of compact basalt, and 

 lying about boulders of indurated green clay No. 92, and shell breccia No. 

 93, 94 ; about 50 or 60 yards to the right the nulla passed over a ledge of 



* I enclose a transcript made by Captain Wheatly and myself, the explanation given by a pundit 

 afterwards by no means agreeing with the oral communication on the spot. 



5 Y 



