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sportsman even although he may not get blood, but assuredly he 

 who follows this sport must not only have the eyes of a hawk, but 

 own also legs tough as steel, and lungs like those of a High- 

 land piper. 



As I cannot describe the magnificent scenery of these hills in any 

 language which could do justice to the subject, I shall make use of 

 the following extracts, which I find in the Indian Revieiv of 1837 

 on a " Memoir on the Geology of the Ncilgherry and Koondah 

 " Mountains By P. M. BENZA, Esq., M. D., of the Madras Medical 

 " Establishment." 



As the author says, many of the apparent undulations " have 

 thousands of feet of elevation," they are covered with grass, dotted 

 with rhododendrons which in this month, November, are bursting 

 into the full glories of their brilliant crimson flowers, so grandly 

 that they attracted the attention of my gun-carrier, and be it 

 remembered that the native of India, let his creed or profession be 

 what it may, is singularly blind to the beauties of nature. These 

 undulations, mountains, or hills, call them whatever the reader 

 pleases, are divided by streams of the clearest water, every one of 

 which has its own series of lovely and romantic cascades, and the 

 banks of which are always more or less wooded ; many of the 

 glens, gorges and ravines on the hill sides are covered with very 

 dense, although not very lofty forest. The climate is delightful, 

 and to an old Indian there can be few sensations more delightful 

 than feeling the grass and twigs crisp from hoar frost crackling 

 under his feet, or that he has to guard against cold instead of heat 

 in his sporting excursions. 



But to return to Dr. Benza : " Descending from the eastern 

 " Koondah pass, and crossing the field, a little knoll is seen, traversed 

 " by a basaltic dyke in an east and west direction ; it is flanked by, 

 " and has burst through, sienitic granite : crossing the road on 

 " ascending the ridge opposite to the Avalanche, this land-slip comes 

 " at once to view. There has evidently been no sinking of the 

 " land in the declivity of the hill ; but it seems that a thick stratum 

 " of the rock, lying almost vertically on the declivity of the hill. 

 " and between which and another the present rivulet runs, whose 

 * waters having undermined the stratum (which might have over- 



