I 
30 Chandrasekhara Banurji —The Kairnur Range. [No. 1, 
We halted at this temple for refreshment. The fare offered was poor 
enough, but the priest was good-natured, and, to humour us, recited a verse 
to the effect— 
“ That there was no harm for the Eastern people (Bengali) to take fish. 
“ There was no harm for the people of the Deccan to marry their 
daughters to nephews. 
“ There was no harm for the Western people to drink water from 
leather bags. 
“ And there was no harm for the people of the north to eat buffalo 
meat.” This authority, however, came an hour too late. To collect 
information as to the best way of getting up to the hill, to visit the shrine, 
and to get at the inscriptions of which we had heard, but which nobody 
could precisely tell us where to find, were matters of anxiety. An old 
policeman, born and employed in the neighbourhood, at last offered to 
show us both the shrine and the “ letters” around it. 
It was the shrine of Tuttala Bhavani. Tuttala Bhavani lay five miles 
off, and as soon as we could be ready, we trudged on wearily along a sandy 
road stretching to the south-west. Amidst everything that was wild we 
were delighted to observe the broad clearings in the jungle, decked with the 
crops of the season—oats, wheat, barley, and the handsome poppy, and to con¬ 
trast the bleakness of the hills with the result of human energy, which has 
turned the wilderness into fields of lovely green. Past this plain we found 
ourselves near the shrine. With the sun in front and a bed of innumera¬ 
ble stones scattered under our feet, we walked on wearily until the bluish 
haziness faded away, and we got a full view of the glen. It is a most 
secluded and wild spot, formed by the receding curves of two stupendous 
ridges, narrowing in from the north-west and south-east : their steep arms 
have raised a barrier which casts a gloomy shade, and makes it twilight long 
before the setting sun goes to his western bed. The summits of the 
two ridges slope down nearer 200 feet before they join. But from where 
they join to the foot of the glen, some 400 feet in height, the rock is one 
upright wall of sandstone. The edge of this wall has been washed for un¬ 
known ages by a waterfall which, during the rains, dashes down in a huge 
torrent. The surging of the cataract has of course dug a huge tarn below, 
which is deep, and retains limpid water all round the year. 
“ A lofty precipice in front, 
A silent tarn below.” 
During the autumnal months when the sky is serene, the hills stand 
in their rich mantle of deep blue and green, and the sun shines clear over head, 
this water-fall appears like a blazing column investing the chain with a 
splendour which the eye could never be tired of gazing. We gazed upon it 
but once at a distance across the Son, and ever since, we had been anxious 
to know what the place was like. The water, which spills out into the pool 
