IOC 



" that came to view. To the south of where we stood, the northern 

 " termination of the Koondahs rose in abrupt escarpments and verti- 

 " cal precipices, to the enormous height of 8,000 feet, excavated and 

 " furrowed by deep ravines. Sharp mural spurs project from their 

 " rugged abrupt facades, like so many props for the support of those 

 " gigantic walls ; some of them, thousands of feet high, have not 

 " breadth proportionate to such an altitude ; and they decrease, as 

 " they shoot upwards, to an oblong sharp edge, forming the summits 

 " of these wall-like escarpments. 



" A sentiment of deep wonder must influence the beholder of 

 " such wild solitude and grandeur, rising majestically above the 

 " tame, monotonous plains of Malabar. I never saw such im- 

 " pressive mountain scenery before, Sispara's amphitheatre not 

 " excepted, which is too small, too tame and regular, to bear 

 " comparison with this. 



" Having admired this stupendous spectacle, we thought of 

 " scaling the peak. I must say a few words of this extraodinary 

 "excrescence, which shoots up from the very edge of an abrupt 

 " precipice, and raises its perpendicular facade above five hundred 

 " feet. On the very brink of the escarpment, which forms the 

 " western termination of the Makoortee range, this peak rises, 

 " suddenly, in the shape of a cone split into two equal parts from the 

 " apex to the base, one-half having been hurled down to the plains of 

 " Malabar, the other stuck to the brim of the precipice, and having 

 " its split facade in a line with the escarpment, like a' gigantic 

 " battlement. 



" This abrupt mural precipice, on the south side, is continued 

 " with the northern end of the Koondahs ; yet a spur shoots out 

 " from it in a westerly direction, making a segment of a circle, the 

 " concavity of which looks north. Along the escarpment of this 

 " curve the other two peaks stand in the same manner, and having 

 " the same from as the highest one, but of smaller dimensions. 



" The distance between each of these peaks cannot exceed four 

 " hundred yards. At the termination of this precipice there is an 

 " isolated column-like hill, which raises its lofty summit from among 

 " innumerable huge masses, heaped up in the greatest confusion 

 " imaginable the [ruins and wreck of its own mass. 



