grass, and the ravines only are filled with trees, forming thickets called sholas. In the rear of the bungalow there is an almost unrivalled view of the Malabar plains, from the edge of a precipice. The Koondah hills sweep round until they join the Wynaads, half encircling the Nellamboor valley, which was thousands of feet below us, and is covered with forest, intersected in all directions by open glades of a rich light green. The Koondahs rise up from Malabar like perpendicular walls, so steep that even a cat could not scale them in any part, for a distance of forty miles; and the grandeur of the view from this point, with these sublime cliffs, and the vast expanse of forest-covered plain below, is very striking. At daylight next morning we left the Sispara bungalow, and rode for several miles through a valley interspersed with sholas of rhododendron-trees. Eighteen miles from Sispara is the Avalanche bungalow, 6720 feet above the sea, whence there is a good carriage-road to Ootacamund, the chief European station on the Neilgherry hills. At Avalanche the Koondah range is considered to cease, and the Neilgherry hills to commence, but the nature of the country is the same. Between Avalanche and Ootacamund, a distance of 15 miles, the country consists of grassy undulating rounded hills, divided from each other by wooded sholas. Herds of fine buffaloes were grazing by the roadside, and here and there we saw patches of millet (Setaria Italica) near the huts of the natives of these hills. As we rode round the artificial lake, and, passing several pretty little houses surrounded by shrubberies, stopped at the door of Dawson's hotel at Ootacamund, it was difficult to persuade ourselves that we were not again in England. The garden in front of the house was stocked with mignonette, walflowers, and fuchsias, but the immense bushes of heliotrope covered with flowers, ten feet high and at least twenty in circumference, could not have attained such dimensions in an English climate. Ootaca mund is nearly in the centre of the table-land of the Neilgherries, at the foot of the western face of the peak of Dodabetta, and, except to the N.W., the station is completely surrounded by grass-covered hills. Houses are scattered about under the shelter of the hills, with gardens and plantations of Eucalyptus and Acacia heterophylla, trees introduced from Australia, around them; and the broad excellent roads are bordered by Cassia glauca bushes with a bright orange flower, honeysuckles, fox-gloves, geraniums, roses, and masses of the tall Lobelia excelsa. A graceful white iris is also common. This charming spot, now that the roads are planted with tall trees, and the hedges filled with all the familiar flowers introduced from old England, while curling smoke ascends through the foliage, and suggests the idea of chimneys and warm firesides, is as unlike India, and as like an English watering-place, as can be imagined. The tower of the church, seen from many points of view, increases the resemblance, which is certainly not lessened by the rosy cheeks and healthy looks of the children, and the fresh invigorating mountain air. But when a few miles from the station, and out of sight of all English associations, there was much that reminded me of the pajonales in the chinchona region of Caravaya at a first glance: and I felt sanguine that all the pajonal chinchona-trees would thrive in most of the sholas on the Neilgherry hills, while suitable sites for those species which require a warmer climate would be found in the forest slopes which overlook the plains. A closer inspection confirmed me in this opinion. CHAPTER XXII. NEILGHERRY HILLS. Extent-Formation - Soil- Climate- Flora - Hill tribes- Todars - Antiquities- Badagas- Koters - Kurumbers - Irulas - English stations Kotergherry- Ootacamund - Coonoor-Jakatalla Government gardens at Ootacamund and Kalhutty - Mr. McIvor - Coffee cultivation - Rules for sale of waste lands Forest conservancy. THE Neilgherry' hills, between latitude 11° 10' and 11° 32' N., and longitude 76° 59′ and 77° 31′ E., form the most elevated mountain mass in India, south of the Himalayas; the highest peak, that of Dodabetta, being 8610 feet above the level of the sea. They are isolated on three sides, and rise up abruptly from the plains of Coimbatore on the south, and from the table-lands of Wynaad and Mysore on the north and east, to a height of 6000 feet above the former, and 2000 to 3000 above the latter; from which they are divided by the broad ravine of the river Moyaar. On the west they are united with the Koondah range, which is a continuation of the western ghauts. The area of the Neilgherries contains 268,494 acres, of which 24,000 are under cultivation. The formation consists of syenitic granite, with veins of basaltic rock, hornblende, and quartz, while, in some parts, half-decomposed laterite underlies the soil. The plateau is not a flat table-land, but a succession of undulating hills and intervening grassy valleys, with ravines thickly wooded, numerous streams, and occasional rocky ridges running up into fine mountain-peaks. The streams all go 1 Nil, blue, and giri, a mountain; from the blue Justitias which cover many of the hill-slopes. to swell the great river Cauvery, by its tributaries the Moyaar and Bowany; the Moyaar descending from the hills by a fine waterfall at Neddiwuttum, on the northern slope; and the Bowany flowing down between the Koondahs and Neilgherries to the south. The soil of the plateau is very rich, being formed by the decomposition of basaltic and hornblende rocks, mixed with the clayey products of the granite, and much decomposed vegetable matter. The latter consists of the grass killed down to the roots by the frost, washed in by the succeeding rains, and mixed with the subsoil, increasing its richness and depth season after season. The richest land is on the lower slopes, where there are accumulations of soil washed from the hills above:2 and there are extensive deposits of peat in the valleys, which afford supplies of fuel. The chief defect in the soil is the absence of lime. The temperature and amount of humidity vary according to the locality. At Ootacamund, 7300 feet above the sea, the means of the thermometer range from 42° to 68°, while in the two other lower and warmer stations of Coonoor and Kotergherry, about 6000 feet above the sea, the range is from 52° to 71°. The annual rainfall at Ootacamund is sixty inches, at Coonoor fifty-five inches, and at Kotergherry fifty inches. During the south-west monsoon, from May to September, the rain comes down in torrents at Sispara, and in the western parts of the Neilgherries, but their force is somewhat exhausted before reaching Ootacamund, in the centre of the plateau. At that station the rainfall, during the south-west monsoon, is about thirty-four inches; and the range of Dodabetta, which rises up like a wall, immediately to the eastward of Ootacamund, almost entirely screens the eastern part of the hills from the rains of the south-west mon 2 Report of Captain J. Ouchterlony, Superintendent of the Neilgherry Survey in 1848. soon, and there the rainfall is only twelve inches from May to September. During the portion of the year from October to April the western parts of the hills are comparatively dry, the prevalent winds are from the north-east, and the rains which they bring with them from the Madras coast do not extend farther west than the neighbourhood of Ootacamund. Kotergherry, and the eastern parts of the hills, receive the full benefit of the rains from the north-east monsoon, but they are not heavy, and the rainfall at Kotergherry, in that season, is thirty-eight inches. Ootacamund also gets some of the rain of the north-east monsoon (thirty-six inches), so that, in that central part of the plateau, there is a belt which receives a moderate supply of rain throughout the year. In January and December there are frosts in the night, and the extreme radiation which goes on in the valleys causes great cold at sunrise; but these frosts are confined to the valleys in the upper plateau, and they never visit the higher slopes, or the well-wooded “sholas.” The climates of the Neilgherry hills are the most delightful in the world; and it may be said of this salubrious region, with its equable seasons, what the Persian poet said of Kung, "the warmth is not heat, and the coolness is not cold."3 On the open plateau, in the wooded sholas, and in the thick forests of the lower slopes, there is a great variety of beautiful flowering trees and shrubs; and the vegetation of the hills is both varied and luxuriant. First, in the brilliant splendour of its flowers, must be mentioned the tree rhododendron (Rhododendron arboreum), which is very common in all parts of the hills, either forming small thickets or dotted about on the grassy slopes. It grows to a height of twenty feet, with a gnarled stunted trunk, and masses of deep crimson flowers. In the "sholas" are the Michelia nilagiraca, a large tree, with yellowish-white fragrant flowers of great size; the Symplocos 3 Ferdosi. |