32 



CHAPTER V. 



THE BILLIGA-RUNGUN HILLS. 



EARTHEN WALLS — MORLVY HALL — HONHOLLAY RIVER-VIEW — IRRIGATION — INCURSIONS 

 OF WILD ANIMALS INTO CULTIVATION — THE RA.MASAMOODRUM LAKE — METHOD OP 

 TAKING FISH— SLUICES — A NATIVE DROWNED — MEANS USED TO RECOVER HIS BODY 

 — THE BILLIGA-RUNGUN HILLS— FOREST AND VEGETATION — A DESERTED VILLAGE — 

 PROBABLE REASONS OF ABANDONMENT OF JUNGLE- VILLAGES — A NOTED BULL BISON 

 — SHOOT HIM — LAKE ON THE HILLS — HAMLETS OF YELSARIGA AND POONJOOR — 

 BOMMAY GOUDA — THE KOOMBAPPAN GOODY TEMPLE — CHARACTER OF THE GOD — 

 FATE OF THE LAST PRIEST — RITUAL OBSERVED — YOUNG MARRIED WOMEN'S PRAYERS 

 — RELIGION OF NATIVES — PROPITIATING KOOMBAPPAH — THE HOLEY DOINGS OF A 

 HOLY MAN. 



I WAS so busy for the first few months at Morlay that I had no time 

 to build a house, so I lived in tents ; but during the hot weather of 

 1874 I ran up a comfortable bungalow and outhouses for servants and 

 Government stores. My bungalow consists of two rooms, each twenty by 

 fourteen, and a bathing-room. The walls are of clay, smoothened and white- 

 washed. The red gravelly soil common in many parts of Mysore is good 

 material for wall-making. Many remains of earth-work forts which have 

 been exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather for probably two or three 

 hundred years, are to be seen throughout the country, built of this 

 material only, without even a facing of stone, and though the walls are 

 deeply indented and guttered by rain they waste but slowly. Earth for 

 wall- making is first dug up and water is poured on it in the pit, after 

 which it is tempered by men trampling it for some time. It is then built 

 in layers half a yard high, and the required length of the wall ; one day 

 must be allowed for each layer to dry. Ordinary house-walls are one and 

 a half foot thick at bottom, decreasing upwards. Wall-building is generally 

 contracted for by the coolies at work, who take about eightpence for each 



