CHAPTER II.
THE SCENERY AND WATERFALLS OF MYSORE.
Mysore is a tract of country in Southern India approximating in area to Scotland, and with a general elevation of from two to three thousand feet above the level of the sea.

It is commonly spoken of as the Mysore tableland, but this is rather a misleading description if we adopt the dictionary definition of the word tableland as being "a tract of country at once elevated and level," for, though there are in the interior of the province considerable stretches of rolling plains, the so-called tableland presents to the view a country intersected at intervals, more or less remote, with mountain chains, while scattered here and there in the interior of the plateau are isolated rocky hills, or rather hills of rock, termed droogs (Sanscrit, durga, or difficult of access) which sometimes rise to a total height of 5,000 feet above sea level.

The surface of the country, too, is often broken by groups, or clusters of rocks, either low or of moderate elevation, composed of immense boulders, the topmost ones of which are often so finely poised as to seem ready to topple over at the slightest touch.

The highest point of the plateau is about 3,500 feet, and is crowned as it were by the fine bold range of the Bababuden mountains, which have an average elevation of about 6,000 feet.

There are three mountains in Mysore which exceed this elevation, and the highest of them, Mulainagiri, is 6,317 feet above the level of the sea.