Chap. XXVI. VIRARAJENDRAPETT. 449 



form of the leaves is very singular, the singularity consisting 

 in their being bipinnatisect, Avith the ultimate division having 

 the shape of the fin and tail of a fish.^ 



We passed several hundred pack-bullocks conveying 

 Bombay salt from the Malabar ports to the interior, and, 

 having forded the Cauvery at a point where the bed is full of 

 large boulders of rock, reached the village of Virarajendra- 

 pett. It consists of two clean streets, at right angles, with 

 a missionary church and school. The mountains are here 

 dotted with plantain-groves, and nearly every house has 

 a small coifee-garden attached. The surrounding country 

 is exceedingly pretty, the view being bounded by forest- 

 covered mountains. The bungalow at Virarajencb-apett is 

 on the site of an old palace of the Eajahs, and the compound 

 is surrounded by a high wall, with an ornamental gateway, 

 flanked by stone sentry-boxes. 



From this point the descent into 3Ialabar commences, 

 through dense forest, with bright moonlight glancing through 

 the branches of gigantic trees, and after a journey of fifteen 

 miles we reached the bungalow of Ooticiilly in the middle 

 of the jungle. It is in these forests, on the western slopes 

 of the Coorg mountains, that cardamom cultivation is carried 

 on to a great extent. In February parties of Coorgs start 

 for these western mountains, and, selecting a slope facing 

 west or north, mark one of the largest trees on the steepest 

 declivity. A space about 300 feet long and 40 feet broad is 

 then cleared of brushwood, at the foot of the tree ; a platform 

 is rigged about twelve feet up the tree, on which a pair- of 

 woodmen stand and hew away right and left until it faUs 

 head foremost down the side of the mountain, carrying with 

 it a number of smaller trees in a great crash. 



Witliin three months after the felling, the cardamom- 



9 Seemann's Popular History of the Palms, p. 134. 



2 G 



