pulchra, with hairy leaves and snow-white flowers; the Ilex Wightiana, a large umbrageous tree, with small white flowers and red berries; the pretty pink-flowered Rhodo-myrtus tomentosa, the berries of which are called "hill gooseberries;" the Jasminum revolutum, a shrub with sweet yellow flowers; the Sapota elingoides, a fine forest-tree, with rough cracked bark, and an edible fruit used in curries; Crotalaria; Bignonia; peppers, cinnamon, a number of chinchonaceous shrubs, and many others. In the open grassy slopes and near the edges of the wooded ravines are several Vaccinia, especially the Vaccinium Leschenaultii, a shrub with pretty rose-coloured flowers; the beautiful Osbeckia Gardneriana, with a profusion of large purple flowers; the handsome Viburnum Wightianum; a number of balsams (Impatiens of several species); the Gaultheria Leschenault in great quantities, a pretty little shrub with white. flowers and blue berries; the Berberis Mahonia, with its glossy prickly leaves and long slender racemes of yellow flowers; and the bright little pink Indigofera pulchella; while the climbing passion-flower (Passiflora Leschenault") hangs in festoons over the trees, especially in the eastern parts of the hills. Among the more inconspicuous plants are the Gallium requienianum; the Rubia cordifolia; the thorny Solanum ferox, with stem and leaves covered with strong straight prickles; the Girardinia Leschenaultü,5 or Neilgherry nettle, a most virulent stinger; the tall Lobelia excelsa; a Justitia, with a blue flower, which entirely covers some of the hills; some pretty Sonerilas; several beautiful Ipomeas and lilies; 4 Dr. Wight says that this plant might be collected in vast quantities with little trouble or expense, and yields an excellent red dye. 5 This nettle is frequent all over the higher ranges of the Neilgherries. The bark yields a fine strong fibre, which the natives obtain by first boiling the whole plant, to deprive it of its virulently-stinging properties, and then peeling the stalks. The textile material thus obtained is of great delicacy and strength.-Wight's Spicelegium Neilgherense. The fibre of the Neilgherry nettle is worth 2007. a ton in England, and its cultivation is likely to be a remunerative speculation. Celsias; and the Hypericum Hookerianum, growing plentifully in the meadows, with large orange flowers; besides ferns, lycopods, and numberless small wild flowers in the grass and underwood. Enjoying a delightful climate, well supplied with water, and with its gentle undulations of hill and dale in some places clothed with rich pasture, in others presenting woods of fine timber and beautiful flowering shrubs, the Neilgherry hills are eminently fitted for the abode of a thriving and civilized people. Yet for many centuries it would appear that their sole inhabitants were a strange race of cowherds, a people differing in all respects from their neighbours in the plains, and indeed from all the other natives of Hindostan. These are the Todars, a race numbering less than a thousand souls, who now claim to be the original "Lords of the hills." In times so remote that no record of them remains there are still indications that the Indian peninsula was peopled by races of Scythic origin: and, when the Aryan warriors came forth with their Vedic hymns and grand old civilization from the fastnesses of Sind, they swept irresistibly over Hindostan, and formed as it were an upper stratum of the population. The Scythic element either mixed with, or became subservient to the Aryan in the plains, as the Sudra caste, while in the hill and forest fastnesses a few tribes remained isolated and independent. Such, possibly, may have been the origin of the Todars on the Neilgherries. The Brahmins, characteristically dovetailing every tradition and every race into one or other of their historical myths, declare that the Todars came from the north in the army of Rama, when he marched against the wicked Ravana; and that, deserting their chief, they fled to these hills. They themselves have no tradition of their origin, but believe that they were created on the hills. They are certainly a very remarkable and interesting people, tall, well-proportioned, and athletic, and utterly unlike all other natives of India. They have Jewish features, with aquiline noses, hazel eyes, thick lips, bushy black beards, and immensely thick clusters of glossy hair cut so as to stand in dense masses round the sides of the head, a very necessary protection from the sun, as they never wear any other headcovering. The old men are very handsome, with long white beards and upright gait, looking like the patriarchs of the Old Testament, with their strongly marked Jewish features: but the expressions of the younger men are less agreeable to look upon. The women are very careful of their hair, which hangs down in long glossy ringlets; and both sexes wear nothing but a long piece of coarse cotton cloth, with two broad red stripes round the edges, worn by the men like a Roman toga, which sets off their well-shaped limbs to advantage, and exposes one leg entirely, up to the hip; and by the women so as to form a short petticoat and mantle. They never wash either their persons or their clothes from the day of their birth to the day of their death. They live in small encampments called munds, which are scattered over the hills, and consist of five or six huts, and a larger one used as a dairy. The families are in the habit of migrating from one mund to another, at certain seasons of the year; so that we often came upon a mund apparently abandoned. A Todar's hut is exactly like the tilt of a waggon, very neatly roofed, with the ends boarded in, and a single low entrance. They are generally surrounded by a stone wall, and the dairy, a larger and more important building, is always a little apart. The only occupation of this singular people is to tend their large herds of fine buffaloes; they live on milk, and on the grain which they collect as a due or goodoo from the other hill tribes, and pass the greater part of their time in idleness; lolling about and gossiping in their munds, or strolling over the hills. We passed through one of these munds, about a quarter of a mile from our hotel, almost daily, but I never remember having seen a Todar engaged in any occupation whatever. The women become the wives of all the brothers into whose families they marry, the children being apportioned to husbands according to seniority. This pernicious custom is also common among the Coorg, and the Tiars of Malabar. The Todars, formerly, only allowed one female child to live in each family, the rest being strangled; but the authorities have lately interfered to put a stop to this custom. When a Todar bride is given away, she is brought to the dwelling of her husbands, who each put their feet upon her head; she is then sent to fetch water for cooking, and the ceremony is considered to be complete. The German missionaries, who have had a good deal of intercourse with these people, say that they worship the "sacred buffalo bell," as a representation of Hiridea, or the chief God, before which they pour libations of milk; and when there is a dispute about wives or buffaloes it is decided by the priest, who becomes possessed by the Bell God, rushes frantically about, and pronounces in favour of the richest. Formerly there were seven holy munds, each inhabited by a recluse called palaul (milkman), attended upon by a kavilaul (herdsman); but three of these are now deserted, and the fourth is rarely frequented. The rest have a herd of holy buffaloes attached to them for the use of the sanctified occupants, and no women may approach them. The only religious festival of any kind celebrated by the Todars, and that scarcely deserves the name, takes place on the occasion of a funeral, when there is much dancing and music. The body is burnt, and buffaloes are slaughtered to go with the spirit, and supply it with milk. This is called the green funeral. A year afterwards there is another ceremony called the dry funeral, when forty or fifty buffaloes were hunted down, and beaten to death with clubs; but the Government has recently prohibited the immolation of more than two beasts for a rich, and one for a poor Todar. The burial-places are like gigantic extinguishers, twelve feet high, and thatched with grass. The bodies are burnt, and the ashes collected and put into chatties, which are deposited in the extinguisher. The Todars have no other ceremonies, care for nothing but their buffaloes, and leave prayers to the palaul in his lonely retreat, or to the palikarpal or dairyman of each mund, who covers his nose with his thumb when he enters the sacred dairy, and says "May all be well!" The Todar language is a very rude dialect of the old Canarese, and similar to that of the Badagas, another hill tribe. It is very poor in words conveying abstract ideas, as they have few notions beyond their buffaloes; their verbs have generally but one tense, and they express the future and past by means of adverbs of time." There are many ancient cairns and tumuli on the peaks of the Neilgherries, and it has been objected that they cannot be assigned to the ancestors of the Todars, because agricultural implements have been found in them, and these people never cultivate the ground. But it must be remembered that the Todars now extort goodoo or tribute of grain from the other hill tribes, and that it is their only food. It must be inferred, therefore, that, before they discovered this easy mode of procuring food, and previous to the arrival of these weaker agricultural tribes on the hills, the Todars must have been their own cultivators. The hill people attribute all ancient ruins, of the origin of which they know nothing, to the Pandus, the famous heroes of Hindu tradition; and all that can be 6 Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, from the rough Notes of a German Missionary. (Madras, 1856.) 7 Vocabulary of the Dialect spoken | t by the Todars of the Nilagiri Mountains, by the Rev. F. Metz, of the German Evangelical Mission. (Madras, 1857.) |