Now the base forms an uneven shelf of great extent, about two thousand feet above the villages.

This shelf or valley appears to have suffered at some remote period from a terrible inundation.

Landslips of great size and innumerable deep gorges and ravines furrow the bottom of the basin, until at length a principal fissure carries away the united streams to the paddy-fields below.
The cause of this inundation is plain enough.

The basin has been the receptacle for the drainage of an extensive surface of mountain.

This drainage has been effected by innumerable small torrents, which have united in one general channel through the valley.