The _Butea frondosa_ was abundantly in flower here, and a gorgeous sight. In mass the inflorescence resembles sheets of flame, and individually the flowers are eminently beautiful, the bright orange-red petals contrasting brilliantly against the jet-black velvety calyx. The nest of the _Megachile_ (leaf-cutter bee) was in thousands in the cliffs, with Mayflies, Caddis-worms, spiders, and many predaceous beetles. Lamellicorn beetles were very rare, even _Aphodius,_ and of _Cetoniæ_ I did not see one. [Illustration: Soane Valley and Kymore Hills. <i>Cochlospermum gossypium</i> and <i>Butea frondosa</i> in flower.] We marched on the 28th to Kota, at the junction of the river of that name with the Soane, over hills of flinty rock, which projected everywhere, to the utter ruin of the elephants’ feet, and then over undulating hills of limestone; on the latter I found trees of _Cochlospermum,_ whose curious thick branches spread out somewhat awkwardly, each tipped with a cluster of golden yellow flowers, as large as the palm of the hand, and very beautiful: it is a tropical Gum-Cistus in the appearance and texture of the petals, and their frail nature. The bark abounds in a transparent gum, of which the white ants seem fond, for they had killed many trees. Of the leaves the curious rude leaf-bellows are made, with which the natives of these hills smelt iron. Scorpions appeared very common here, of a small kind, 1.5 inch long; several were captured, and one of our party was stung on the finger; the smart was burning for an hour or two, and then ceased. At Kota we were nearly opposite the cliffs at Beejaghur, where coal is reported to exist; and here we again crossed the Soane, and for the last time. The ford is three miles up the river, and we marched to it through deep sand. The bed of the river is here 500 feet above the sea, and about three-quarters of a mile broad, the rapid stream being 50 or 60 yards wide, and breast deep. The sand is firm and siliceous, with no mica; nodules of coal are said to be washed down thus far from the coal-beds of Burdee, a good deal higher up, but we saw none. The cliffs come close to the river on the opposite side, their bases clothed with woods which teemed with birds. The soil is richer, and individual trees, especially of _Bombax, Terminalia_ and _Mahowa,_ very fine; one tree of the _Hardwickia,_ about 120 feet high, was as handsome a monarch of the forest as I ever saw, and it is not often that one sees trees in the tropics, which for a combination of beauty in outline, harmony of colour, and arrangement of branches and foliage, would form so striking an addition to an English park.