with which this singular people regard the transition from present to future existence.  These corpses, however, which are thus committed to the wave, do not always chime so happily in with the reveries of boating-parties on the Nerbada.  The Marble Rocks are often resorted to by pic-nic parties in the moonlit evenings; and one can easily fancy that to have a dusky dead body float against one’s boat and sway slowly round alongside in the midst of a gay jest or of a light song of serenade, as is said to have happened not unfrequently here, is not an occurrence likely to heighten the spirits of revelers.  Occasionally, also, the black, ugly double snout of the magar (or Nerbada crocodile) may pop up from the surface, which may here serve as a warning to the young lady who trails her hand in the water—­and I have yet to be in a boating-party where the young lady did not trail her hand in the water—­that on the Nerbada it is perhaps as well to resign an absent-minded hand to the young officer who sits by her in the boat lest Magar should snap it off.

Leaving the Nerbada we now struck off northward toward the Tonsa, intending to pass round by way of Dumoh, Sangor, Bhilsa and Sanchi to Bhopal.  We might have pursued a route somewhat more direct by following directly down the valley of the Nerbada to Hoshangabad, and thence straight across to Bhopal, but my companion preferred the circuitous route indicated, as embracing a greater variety of interesting objects.  He had procured for our conveyance a vehicle which was in all respects suitable to the placidity of his temper; and I make bold to confess that, American as I am—­born on the railroad, so to speak—­I have never enjoyed traveling as I did in this novel carriage.  It was what is called a chapaya.  It consisted of a body nearly ten feet in length by more than five in breadth, and was canopied by a top supported upon sculptured pillars of wood.  The wheels were massive and low.  There were no springs; but this deficiency was atoned for by the thick cushionment of the rear portion of the vehicle, which allowed us to lie at full length in luxurious ease as we rolled along.  Four white bullocks, with humps and horns running nearly straight back on the prolongation of the forehead line, drew us along in a very stately manner at the rate of something like a mile and a half an hour.

We were now in the Gondwana, in some particulars one of the most interesting portions of the country.  Here are the Highlands of Central India; here rise the Nerbada and the Tapti—­which flow to the westward in a generally parallel direction, and empty into the Gulf of Cambaye, the one at Broode and the other at Surat—­as well as the Son, the Keyn (or Cane) and the Tonsa, which flow northward into the Jumna.  The valley of the Keyn and that of the Tonsa here run across the Vindhyas, which are known to the eastward of this as the Kyrmores, and afford communication between Northern and Southern India.  It is along the depression of the latter stream that the railway has been built from Jabalpur to Allahabad.