tbo

INDIA

seasons of the year ; but the attempt was finally abandoned
 for uncertain reasons (though the frightful mortality
which beset the European staff of engineers and workmen
in these pestiferous jungles may have had much to say to
it), and the Godavari is now only partially navigable when
in flood.
It is only natural that amid the varied scenery which
borders the river there should occasionally be points of
great beauty. Perhaps the most striking is to be found
some 50 miles above Rajmahendri (Rajamundry), where
the Godavari is steeply enclosed between the Bison range
(so called from the occasional visits of herds of bison) and
the hills of Rumpa. Here the steeply-shelving cliffs and
massed forests of bamboo, teak, tamarind, and fig, with
scores of other indigenous trees which clothe the lower
slopes and dip into the river, form a most striking series
of pictures as the steamer strains up against the stream
from reach to reach. No part of the Rhine is more picturesque,
 although it possesses the added charm (totally
wanting in the Godavari) of human interest in the quaint
castles and ruins which dominate the heights on either
bank.
The Indravati, which is entirely a forest-bound river,
has the attraction of a waterfall of go feet where it drops
into the valley of the Godavari from the highlands of
Jagdalpur, but it possesses otherwise far more attractions
for the sportsman than it does for the artist. Into the
domain of the Godavari but few people, except sportsmen,
penetrate ; and even the few usually confine themselves to
the western branches of the river, where the Haidarabad
plateau opens into a less dense continuity of jungle. Into
the native states of Jaipur (not to be confounded with the
Jaipur of Rajputana) and Jagdalpur (otherwise called
Bustar), between the Godavari and the east coast, no
European ever ventures except under official compulsion.
These eastern jungles are deadly at nearly all seasons of
the year. They form the home of the aboriginal Gond
tribes—who will be described elsewhere.
With the limited facilities now afforded for navigation,