'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎175] (284/496)

useful purpose, and the only available boats, or boatmen, are those
employed at the different ferries or ghauts.
3. The boats are consequently unfitted for ascending and descend
ing the more difficult parts of the river, being too broad and low-
sided, and the boatmen are unskilful in their use.
4. With some difficulty I succeeded in procuring, from a village a
few miles above Hindia, a boat that, from its shape, was more suited to
my purpose, and having fitted it with mast and sail, and engaged
boatmen, I started on the afternoon of the 30th of January. The
boat was flat-bottomed, 19ft. 9in. long, and 4ft. 9in. broad.
5. I was accompanied from Hindia to Mundhar by two canoes
lashed together and manned by fishermen ; these I found most useful,
as they enabled me to precede the larger boat in places where, from the
shallowness of the water, its progress was necessarily slow. From
Mundhar I permitted them to return, as I found I could dispense with
their assistance for the remaining part of the journey. For any pur
pose of traffic, these canoes would be perfectly useless, as the waves in
the rapid parts of the river completely fill them, and if laden
they would sink.
6. From Hindia to the junction of the Ajnal River, the Nerbudda
is unusually favorable for navigation. Near the foot of Joga we were
delayed by some rapids, but to boatmen well acquainted with the River
they would be impediments of no moment.
7. Commencing at the Ajnal River the bed of the Nerbudda ex
tends to nearly double its usual width, and is divided into many small
shallow streams, running between rocks and jungle, the inclination
being so great as to give this part of the river more the appearance of
a collection of mountain streamlets than the course of an important
river. At the junction of the Machuch River, these rapids cease,
and the stream is concentrated into one large deep pool to the head of
the Mundhar falls, a distance of two miles.
8. The Mundhar falls are almost as high, and the descent of water
more perpendicular, than the falls of Dharee, which in general character
they closely resemble. Towards the southern bank a smaller stream
makes the same descent in a number of short drops, down which my
boat was dragged by thirty men, but in places it was almost carried.