208 NARBADA RIVER. industry; for at this point are collected many hundred logs of timber in the forests, to be fioated down the stream to the marts of Jabalpur. About 9 miles to the south-west of Jabalpur, the Narbadá filings itself tumultuously over a ledge with a fall of thirty feet, called Dhuán-dhára, or the Misty Shoot; and then enters on a narrow channel, cut through a mass of marble and basalt for nearly 2 miles, and known as the Marble Rocks. The river, which above this point had a breadth of 100 yards, is here compressed within 20 yards, and flows in a swirling stream between marble bluffs from 50 to 80 feet high, till, escaping from its glittering prison, it spreads out once more in a broad expanse. The Narbadá now leaves the hill country behind, and enters upon the fertile valley, over 200 miles long, which includes Narsinghpur and the greater part of Hoshangabad District. This is the first of those wide alluvial basins, which, alternating with rocky gorges, give so varied a character to the river's course. Probably they were originally lakes, more or less closely connected, and fed by a slowly flowing river, down which clayey sediment was carried, and gradually and uniformly distributed over a considerable extent of country. On the conglomerate and clay thus deposited, lie 20 feet of the rich alluvium, known as the regar or black cotton-soil of Central India. Passing under a great railway viaduct, with massive piers, the Narbadá flows along this valley, which is shut in between the parallel ranges of the Vindhya and Satpura mountains. During the rainy season, the river affords the means of a brief and precarious traffic. At Barman Ghát, after the rains, the receding waters leave a broad space of sand, where, every November, is held one of the largest fairs in the Central Provinces. The Narbadá now flows past the coal-pits of Mohpáni and the iron-mines of Tendúkhera, past cotton fields and plains clothed twice a year with waring harvests, past Hoshangabád, and the once famous towns of Handia and Nimáwar, past Jogígarh, where it rushes with clear rapids right beneath the battlements and bastions, till it once more enters the jungle in the District of Nimár. Emerging from these wilds, it flows in a deep and violent stream past the sacred island of MAXDHATA, crowded with Sivaite temples, and steep with cliffs, from which devotees were wont to dash theniselves on to the rocks in the river below. During the passage of the Narbadá through the Central Provinces, several falls interrupt its course. At Umaria, in Narsinghpur District, is a fall of about 10 feet; at Mandhár, 25 miles below Handii, a fall of 40 feet; and at Dadri, near Punása, another fall of 40 fect. The Narbadá is fed principally from the south side, as the drainage of the Vindhyan table-land which bounds the valley on the north is almost entirely northwards. Its principal afluents are the Makrár, Chakrár, Kharmer, Burliner, and Banjar, then the Timar, the Soner, Sher, and
