In the evening we returned to our tamarind tree, and the next morning regained the trunk road, following it to the dawk bungalow of Doomree. On the way I found the _Cæsalpinia paniculuta,_ a magnificent climber, festooning the trues with its dark glossy foliage and gorgeous racemes of orange blossoms. Receding from the mountain, the country again became barren: at Doomree the hills were of crystalline rocks, chiefly quartz and gneiss; no palms or large trees of any kind appeared. The spear-grass abounded, and a detestable nuisance it was, its long awns and husked seed working through trowsers and stockings.
_Balanites_ was not uncommon, forming a low thorny bush, with _Ægle marmelos_ and _Feronia elephantum._ Having rested the tired elephant, we pushed on in the evening to the next stage, Baghoda, arriving there at 3 a.m., and after a few hours’ rest, I walked to the bungalow of Lieutenant Beadle, the surveyor of roads, sixteen miles further.
The country around Baghoda is still very barren, but improves considerably in going westward, the ground becoming hilly, and the road winding through prettily wooded valleys, and rising gradually to 1,446 feet. _Nauclea cordifolia,_ a tree resembling a young sycamore, is very common; with the Semul (_Bombax_), a very striking tree from its buttressed trunk and gaudy scarlet flowers, swarming with birds, which feed from its honeyed blossoms.
At 10 a.m. the sun became uncomfortably hot, the thermometer being 77°, and the black-bulb thermometer 137°. I had lost my hat, and possessed no substitute but a silken nightcap; so I had to tie a handkerchief over my head, to the astonishment of the passers-by. Holding my head down, I had little source of amusement but reading the foot-marks on the road; and these were strangely diversified to an English eye. Those of the elephant, camel, buffalo and bullock, horse, ass, pony, dog, goat, sheep and kid, lizard, wild-cat and pigeon, with men, women, and children’s feet, naked and shod, were all recognisable.
It was noon ere I arrived at Lieutenant Beadle’s, at Belcuppee (alt. 1,219 feet), glad enough of the hearty welcome I received, being very hot, dusty, and hungry. The country about his bungalow is very pretty, from the number of wooded hills and large trees, especially of banyan and peepul, noble oak-like Mahowa (_Bassia_), _Nauclea,_ Mango, and _Ficus infectoria._ These are all scattered, however, and do not form forest, such as in a stunted form clothes the hills, consisting of _Diospyros, Terminalia, Gmelina, Nauclea parvifolia, Buchanania,_ etc. The rocks are still hornblende-schist and granite, with a covering of alluvium, full of quartz pebbles. Insects and birds are numerous, the latter consisting of jays, crows, doves, sparrows, and maina (_Pastor_); also the _Phœnicophaus tristis_ (“Mahoka” of the natives), with a note like that of the English cuckoo, as heard late in the season. I remained two days with Lieutenant Beadle, enjoying in his society several excursions to the hot springs, etc. These springs (called Soorujkoond) are situated close to the road, near the mouth of a valley, in a remarkably pretty spot. They are, of course, objects of worship; and a ruined temple stands close behind them, with three very conspicuous trees—a peepul, a banyan, and a white, thick-stemmed, leafless _Sterculia,_ whose branches bore dense clusters of greenish fœtid flowers. The hot springs are four in number, and rise in as many ruined brick tanks about two yards across. Another tank, fed by a cold spring, about twice that size, flows between two of the hot, only two or three paces distant from one of the latter on either hand. All burst through the gneiss rocks, meet in one stream after a few yards, and are conducted by bricked canals to a pool of cold water, about eighty yards off.