MANUAL OP THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 3 



west they appear like the battlemented wall of some gigantic CHAP. r. 



fortress. Dense, but intensely green, tropical forest, interspersed General 



with bamboo palm and fern-tree, clothes the ravines and even the Desckh-tion. 



precipitous buttress-like spurs, to the very crest of ghdts, the eastern 



face of which is covered only with wiry brownish green grass, in 



which appear here and there dwarfed rhododendron and other 



subalpine shrubs. From the extreme south-west angle of the 



district the range runs in a southerly direction, rapidly decreasing 



in height, until it reaches the open country, known as the Coim- 



batore Gap, to the south of which rise the A'nemale ^ Hills. This 



gap, in breadth about twenty miles, forms the great historic 



pass between the Carnatic and Malabar, formerly commanded by 



the Palghdt Fort. 



To return to the Kundas : the ghat line pursues first an easterly 

 direction as far as the Melkunda promontory, which is divided 

 from the Nilagiris proper by the Ktinda river. Thence it pursues 

 a north-easterly direction, gradually becoming less serrated, 

 rugged and abrupt in character, though still broken by ravine 

 and gorge, precipice and promontory. This character it main- 

 tains along its northern limit, though the table-land from which 

 the Nilagiris spring, gradually rises from below one thousand 

 feet on their eastern, to above three thousand feet on their 

 northern side. 



Apart from the Klinda and Nidumale ranges, the surface of 

 the Nilagiris is divided into an upper and lower plateau. The 

 lower forming an irregular shelf, rests upon the north-eastern and 

 southern slopes of the Doddabetta,' or great central range and its 

 offshoots, including the north-east angle of the plateau, sometimes, 

 though without sufficient reason, called the Kotagiri range. The 

 higher plateau, known amongst the aborigines as the "Mel,''^ or 

 upland, nad, comprises the tract lying between the western slopes 

 of Doddabetta and the Nidumale and Kiinda ranges. The 

 average elevation of this higher plateau above the lower may be 

 roughly stated at from 1,000 to 1,500 feet. 



The great ranges already mentioned cross the Hill plateau from Hill Eanges 

 south to north with an inclination towards the east, but they ^^^ Peaks, 

 appear to be traversed, at the ghdt line already described, by 

 ridges running from east to west. These traversing lines appear 

 to have been thrown up at a later geological period, as explained 

 in another chapter. 



The Doddabetta range proper, seen from the east, might be Hills— 

 I termed a great cradle mountain, with Doddabetta as its southern, central. 



1 Or Elephant Hills. A'nS (elephant). 



2 Lit. the great hill ; from dodda (Karn.), great, and hetta (Karn.), a hill. 

 ^ Md (Karn.), above or west, and nddu. 



