sound in English. Accordingly, the word written "Jabalpúr" should
be pronounced as if retaining the "u" and the "oo" with which it was
formerly written, "Jubbulpoor". The termination _púr_, so common in
the designation of Indian places, is equivalent to that of _ville_
in English, and means the same. The other common termination, _abad_,
means "dwelling" or "residence": e.g., Ahmedabad, the residence of
Ahmed. Jabalpúr is but about a mile from the right bank of the Nerbadá
(_Nerbudda_) River; and as I wished to see the famous Marble Rocks
of that stream, which are found a short distance from Jabalpúr, my
companion and I here left the railway, intending to see a little of
the valley of the Nerbadá, and then to strike across the Vindhyas,
along the valley of the Tonsa, to Bhopal, making our journey by such
slow, irregular and easy stages as should be compatible with that
serene and philosophic disposition into which the Hindu's beautiful
gravity had by this time quite converted my American tendencies toward
rushing through life at the killing pace.

[Illustration: CENOTAPHS IN THE VALLEY OF THE TONSA.]

It was a little past midday when we made our first journey along the
river between the Marble Rocks. Although the weather was as nearly
perfect as weather could be, the mornings being deliciously cool and
bracing and the nights cold enough to produce often a thin layer of
ice over a pan of water left exposed till daybreak, yet the midday sun
was warm enough, especially after a walk, to make one long for leaves
and shade and the like. It would be difficult, therefore, to convey
the sensations with which we reclined at our ease in a flat-bottomed
punt while an attendant poled us up toward the "Fall of Smoke," where
the Nerbadá leaps out eagerly toward the low lands he is to fertilize,
like a young poet anxious to begin his work of grace in the world. On