The ascent to Rotas is over the dry hills of limestone, covered with a scrubby brushwood, to a crest where are the first rude and ruined defences. The limestone is succeeded by the sandstone cliff cut into steps, which led from ledge to ledge and gap to gap, well guarded with walls and an archway of solid masonry. Through this we passed on to the flat summit of the Kymore hills, covered with grass and forest, intersected by paths in all directions. The ascent is about 1,200 feet—a long pull in the blazing sun of February. The turf consists chiefly of spear-grass and Andropogon muricatus, the kus-kus, which yields a favourite fragrant oil, used as a medicine in India. The trees are of the kinds mentioned before. A pretty octagonal summer-house, with its roof supported by pillars, occupies one of the highest points of the plateau, and commands a superb view of the scenery before described. From this a walk of three miles leads through the woods to the palace. The buildings are very extensive, and though now ruinous, bear evidence of great beauty in the architecture: light galleries, supported by slender columns, long cool arcades, screened squares and terraced walks, are the principal features. The rooms open out upon flat roofs, commanding views of the long endless table-land to the west, and a sheer precipice of 1000 feet on the other side, with the Soane, the amphitheatre of hills, and the village of Akbarpore below.
This and Beejaghur, higher up the Soane, were amongst the most recently reduced forts, and this was further the last of those wrested from Baber in 1542. Some of the rooms are still habitable, but the greater part are ruinous, and covered with climbers, both of wild flowers and of the naturalised garden plants of the adjoining shrubbery; the Arbor-tristis, with Hibiscus, Abutilon, etc., and above all, the little yellow-flowered Linaria ramosissima, crawling over every ruined wall, as we see the walls of our old English castles clothed with its congener L. Cymbalaria.
In the old dark stables I observed the soil to be covered with a copious evanescent efflorescence of nitrate of lime, like soap-suds scattered about.
I made Rotas Palace 1,490 feet above the sea, so that this table-land is here only fifty feet higher than that I had crossed on the grand trunk road, before descending at the Dunwah pass. Its mean temperature is of course considerably (4°) below that of the valley, but though so cool, agues prevail after the rains. The extremes of temperature are less marked than in the valley, which becomes excessively heated, and where hot winds sometimes last for a week, blowing in furious gusts.
The climate of the whole neighbourhood has of late changed materially; and the fall of rain has much diminished, consequent on felling the forests; even within six years the hail-storms have been far less frequent and violent. The air on the hills is highly electrical, owing, no doubt, to the dryness of the atmosphere, and to this the frequent recurrence of hail-storms may be due.
The zoology of these regions is tolerably copious, but little is known of the natural history of a great part of the plateau; a native tribe, prone to human sacrifices, is talked of. Tigers are common, and bears are numerous; they have, besides, the leopard, panther, viverine cat, and civet; and of the dog tribe the pariah, jackal, fox, and wild dog, called Koa. Deer are very numerous, of six or seven kinds. A small alligator inhabits the hill streams, said to be a very different animal from either of the Soane species.
During our descent we examined several instances of ripple-mark (fossil waves’ footsteps) in the sandstone; they resembled the fluting of the Sigillaria stems, in the coal-measures, and occurring as they did here, in sandstone, a little above great beds of limestone, had been taken for such, and as indications of coal.
On the following day we visited Rajghat, a steep ghat or pass leading up the cliff to Rotas Palace, a little higher up the river. We took the elephants to the mouth of the glen, where we dismounted, and whence we followed a stream abounding in small fish and aquatic insects (Dytisci and Gyrini), through a close jungle, to the foot of the cliffs, where there are indications of coal. The woods were full of monkeys, and amongst other plants I observed Murraya exotica, but it was scarce. Though the jungle was so dense, the woods were very dry, containing no Palm, Adroideæ, Peppers, Orchideæ or Ferns. Here, at the foot of the red cliffs, which towered imposingly above, as seen through the tree tops, are several small seams of coaly matter in the sandstone, with abundance of pyrites, sulphur, and copious efflorescences of salts of iron; but no coal. The springs from the cliffs above are charged with lime, of which enormous tuff beds are deposited on the sandstone, full of impressions of the leaves and stems of the surrounding trees, which, however, I found it very difficult to recognize, and could not help contrasting this circumstance with the fact that geologists, unskilled in botany, see no difficulty in referring equally imperfect remains of extinct vegetables to existing genera. In some parts of their course the streams take up quantities of the efflorescence, which they scatter over the sandstones in a singular manner.
At Akbarpore I had sunk two thermometers, one 4 feet 6 inches, the other 5 feet 6 inches; both invariably indicated 76°, the air varying from 56° to 79·5°. Dew had formed every night since leaving Dunwah, the grass being here cooled 12° below the air.
On the 19th of February we marched up the Soane to Tura, passing some low hills of limestone, between the cliffs of the Kymore and the river. On the shaded riverbanks grew abundance of English genera—Cynoglossum, Veronica, Potentilla, Ranunculus sceleratus, Rumex, several herbaceous Compositæ and Labiatæ; Tamarix formed a small bush in rocky hillocks in the bed of the river, and in pools were several aquatic plants, Zannichellia, Chara, a pretty little Vallisneria, and Potamogeton. The Brahminee goose was common here, and we usually saw in the morning immense flocks of wild geese overhead, migrating northward.