Note 66 — CHAPTER 2

Chittram, the name applied to these flats of hard soil (which Mr. Elphinstone happily describes, by saying that it rings under the horses’ hoofs in marching over it), is literally ‘the picture,’ from the circumstance of such spots almost constantly presenting the mirage, here termed chittram. How far the soil, so deeply impregnated with alkaline matter, may tend to heighten, if not to cause this, we have elsewhere noted in a general account of this optical phenomenon in various parts of northern India.