There is a large break in the Kymore hills here, beyond the village of Kunch, through which our route lay to Beejaghur, and the Ganges at Mirzapore; the cliff’s leaving the river and trending to the north in a continuous escarpment flanked with low ranges of rounded hills, and terminating in an abrupt spur (Mungeesa Peak) whose summit was covered with a ragged forest. At Kunch we saw four alligators sleeping in the river, looking at a distance like logs of wood, all of the short-nosed or mugger kind, dreaded by man and beast; I saw none of the sharp-shouted (or garial), so common on the Ganges, where their long bills, with a garniture of teeth and prominent eyes peeping out of the water, remind one of geological lectures and visions of _Ichthyosauri._ Tortoises were frequent in the river, basking on the rocks, and popping into the water when approached. On the 1st of March we left the Soane, and struck inland over a rough hilly country, covered with forest, fully 1000 feet below the top of the Kymore table-land, which here recedes from the river and surrounds an undulating plain, some ten miles either way, facing the south. The roads, or rather pathways, were very bad, and quite impassable for the carts without much engineering, cutting through forest, smoothing down the banks of the watercourses to be crossed, and clearing away the rocks as we best might. We traversed the empty bed of a mountain torrent, with perpendicular banks of alluvium 30 feet high, and thence plunged into a dense forest. Our course was directed towards Mungeesa Peak, the remarkable projecting spur, between which and a conical hill the path led. Whether on the elephants or on foot, the thorny jujubes, _Acacias,_ etc. were most troublesome, and all our previous scratchings were nothing to this. Peacocks and jungle-fowl were very frequent, the squabbling of the former and the hooting of the monkeys constantly grating on the ear. There were innumerable pigeons and a few Floricans (a kind of bustard—considered the best eating game-bird in India). From the defile we emerged on an open flat, halting at Sulkun, a scattered village (alt. 684 feet), peopled by a bold-looking race (Coles)[22] who habitually carry the spear and shield. We had here the pleasure of meeting Mr. Felle, an English gentleman employed in the Revenue department; this being one of the roads along which the natives transport their salt, sugar, etc., from one province to another. [22] The Coles, like the Danghas of the Rajmahal and Behar hills, and the natives of the mountains of the peninsula, form one of the aboriginal tribes of British India, and are widely different people from either the Hindoos or Mussulmen.