362 HILL TRIBES— Chap. XXII. 



Celsias ; and the Hypericum Eookerianum, 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 centm-ies it would appear 

 that theu' sole inhabitants were a strange race of cowherds, a 

 people differing in all respects from then- neighbours in the 

 plains, and indeed from all the other natives of Hindostan. 



These are the Todars, a race numbering less than a thou- 

 sand 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 hjnnns 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 

 Eama, when he mai'ched against the wicked Eavana ; and 

 that, deserting their chief, they fled to these hills. They 

 themselves have no tradition of their origin, but behove that 

 they were created on the liills. 



They are certainly a very remarkable^ and interesting 



