280 Description of the country between [No. 10, new series. 



at best no more paddy than is sufficient for their own consump- 

 tion. The road passes through the village of Hookumpett, which 

 seems to contain 40 to 50 houses, while to the south east, distant 

 about \ mile is a river about 20 yards wide, with very steep banks 

 15 feet high, and a sandy and gravelly bed. 



Hookumpett to 5. After leaving Hookumpett the road 

 Aurada 20 miles. passes over a bleak, stony, uncultivated coun- 

 try, as before very undulating, the valley is of black soil, and bear- 

 ing nothing but the coarse grass before mentioned, which was in 

 many places on fire, and burning with surprising rapidity and a 

 loud crackling noise. In the first 3 miles, several small nullahs 

 were crossed, also the river last mentioned, which is like all the 

 rivers of the plateau, extremely circuitous in course, being com- 

 pelled, as it were to follow the course of the valleys. The water in 

 this river we observed to be much discoloured, as though contain- 

 ing much clayey matter, a fact difficult to account for, as the water 

 in similar streams I had always observed to be beautifully clear. 

 The most probable explanation is that, the water running from the 

 paddy and other cultivated fields, then in a slushy and muddy 

 state, occasioned the discoloration. The road now lay through a 

 long and very narrow valley, bounded by high hills covered with 

 jungle. This valley is about 5 miles in length, and does not aver- 

 age more than half a mile in width, the soil still principally black, 

 and with little cultivation. On the west side of the valley we ob- 

 served two very narrow valleys, very similar to that through which 

 we were passing, bounded by very high hills, covered with dense 

 jungle, and running far into the interior. The road through this 

 valley crosses several nullahs, and is partly free of jungle, which, 

 is never very thick. Towards the head of the valley we crossed a 

 tremendously steep and difficult nullah, through which a considera- 

 ble stream, along the top of the east steep bank of which the road 

 which is very rugged and stony, ran. The ground is now 

 seamed with ravines and nullahs, and is consequently a succession, 

 of steep ascents, and descents, and difficult, rugged, and stony. 

 The head of the valley is shut in to all appearance by a magnifi- 

 cent hill, upwards of 4,000 feet above the sea, and quite bare of 

 jungle for some hundred feet from the top, to the south west of 



