hill (the curious fish-pool near here is described on p. 285 below) CHAP. I. Rivers. and through the wide Padwa valley. When about 35 miles south of Jeypore it winds westwards along the edge of the plateau, as if looking for a way down through the low hills which fringe this there, and then suddenly turns at a sharp angle to the south-west down a steep descent. The drop changes a somewhat sluggish river flowing between banks of red earth into a series of rapids foaming between enormous masses of boulders. Three miles from the bend, about the same distance south of Badigada, and 26 miles from the nearest road, the descent is barred by a huge barrier of rock shut in on either side by walls of rock two or three hundred feet high. Below this is a sheer abyss of 480 feet, over which the river flings itself into a boiling pool half hidden by dense clouds of spray on which the sunlight throws the brightest of rainbows. In the dry season it is possible to scramble to the edge of the abyss and look straight down through the spray into the great pool beneath, while from beneath the scene is the most impressive in all the district. Below these falls, which are the highest in the Presidency, the river flows south-westwards in a deep and gloomy gorge, hemmed in on both sides by rock walls hundreds of feet high, into which it is impossible to descend and which is said to continue for many miles.1^[1]

This slowly widens until at Kondakamberu, 32 miles as the crow flies from the falls, it has become a narrow valley shut in by high hills. A few miles further on the river, which is now called the Sileru ('rocky stream') and still runs at the bottom of a deep hollow in the mountains, forms the boundary between Malkanagiri taluk and the Godavari district and flows on, abounding in mahseer and crocodiles, until at Motu it, joins the Saveri. 'Nothing, can exceed the extreme beauty of this lonely river, with its bamboo-covered banks, its deep, long reaches of water, its falls, its grass-covered islets and its rushing clear water. From the grand fall at Badigada to the gorge where it emerges from the Kondakamberu level, it would not be difficult to pole a boat; but this gorge altogether prevents boats from coming up from Motu, and indeed it is equally destructive of all timber-floating operations.'

Soils. The soils of the district have been scientifically classified only in the three Government taluks, in which alone regular settlement operations have been conducted. There they divide themselves into the two main groups of red ferruginous and black, which are