"If you think of Hindoostan as a great diamond, then the valley of the Narmada, which we are about to cross, is like a flaw that runs through the heart of it. Hindoostan has ever been divided among several kingdoms. Their names change, and so do their borders—with one exception, and that is the Narmada, which is a natural boundary between the north and the south. North of it, invaders come and go, and control of the cities and strongholds passes from one dynasty to another. To the south, it is a different story. You cannot see them from here, but there is a line of mountains cutting across Hindoostan from east to west called the Satpura Range. The Narmada drains their northern slopes, flowing along the mountains’ northern flank through a straight deep gorge for many days’ journey. The westernmost extremity of this range is called the Rajpipla Hills, and if the air were not so hazy we would be able to see them off to our right. A day’s journey thataway, the Rajpipla Hills draw back away from the Narmada, which, thus freed from the constraints of the gorge, adopts a meandering habit, and snakes across this plain, and broadens to an estuary much like that of the Tapti which we have just put behind us.