This fall of
their sacred stream the people call the 'Dhuandhar', or 'the smoky
fall', from the thick vapour which is always seen rising from it in
the morning. From below, the river glides quietly and imperceptibly
for a mile and a half along a deep, and, according to popular belief,
a fathomless channel of from ten to fifty yards wide, with snow-white
marble rocks rising perpendicularly on either side from a hundred to
a hundred and fifty feet high, and in some parts fearfully
overhanging. Suspended in recesses of these white rocks are numerous
large black nests of hornets ready to descend upon any unlucky wight
who may venture to disturb their repose;[10] and, as the boats of the
curious European visitors pass up and down to the sound of music,
clouds of wild pigeons rise from each side, and seem sometimes to
fill the air above them. Here, according to native legends, repose
the Pandavas, the heroes of their great Homeric poem, the
Mahabharata, whose names they have transferred to the valley of the
Nerbudda. Every fantastic appearance of the rocks, caused by those
great convulsions of nature which have so much disturbed the crust of
the globe, or by the slow and silent working of the, waters, is
attributed to the god-like power of those great heroes of Indian
romance, and is associated with the recollection of scenes in which
they are supposed to have figured.
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