MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 9 



in spring-tints, beside which the coloring of an English autumn is CHAP. I. 



faint and dull, by native villages, with their patches of cultivation 



and their magnificent single trees, he will find himself on some ridge Description. 



or promontory, looking straight down from 4,000 to 6,000 feet, on a 



scene that changes like the figures in a kaleidoscope. In the morning 

 a sea of clouds lies at his feet, and gradually rises round him. In the 

 afternoon this has cleared away, and reveals, perhaps, a vast crimson 

 plain, veined by dark lines of wood, dotted with isolated hummocks 

 like giant ant-hills, and terminating in faint blue lines of mountains, 

 the furthest of which seems to hang half-way up the sky ; perhaps on 

 a tumbled mass of hills and valleys, a perfect dissolving view, for the 

 eye has hardly traced the outline of some rocky ridge, glowing red in 

 the sun-light, before a blue cloud-shadow blots it out, and a fresh 

 series of crests and ravines starts into sight beyond. Broken peaks, 

 hung with wood, frame the picture, and on all sides lies tropical sun- 

 light, intensified by the keen thin mountain air." 



Great changes, hovrever, are rapidly taking place in the aspect Changes in 

 of the plateau and the slopes, due to three causes, the wide features and 

 extension of cultivation by the hill tribes of cereal and other 

 crops, the increase in the area under tea and coffee, and, lastly, 

 the numerous plantations of Australian and exotic trees, especially 

 in the neighbourhood of the large stations. Thus it has happened 

 that much of the indigenous forest has been felled, and many 

 grand sholas, which existed twenty years ago, have wholly 

 disappeared. To the lover of the scenery peculiar to the Hills, 

 this may seem an irreparable loss, but many vnll find a more 

 than counter-balancing gain in the variety afforded by the rich 

 green of the tea and coffee bushes, the larch-like forests of gums 

 (Eucah/pti) and the pyramidal shapes of the Australian black wood 

 {Acacia melanoxylon) . These make a pleasing contrast with the 

 almost universally rounded forms of the primeval forest, only 

 here and there relieved by the white stems, spreading branches, 

 and flattened tops of a few of the indigenous trees. Long, 

 however, before Europeans reached the Hills, the process of the 

 destruction of the woodlands had been going on in the tracts 

 occupied by the Badag-as, on the slopes of the Doddabetta range, 

 the western alone excepted. There can be little question 

 that these tracts, which are now given up almost wholly to the 

 plough or hoe, were once covered with dense jungle, except the 

 more stony ridges and heights. This is evidenced by the numer- 

 ous shola trees, single or in groups of two or three, standing 

 generally near a rock or stream, which have owed their escape from 

 the general destruction to the superstitious fears of the people, 

 who regard them as the homes of the unseen genii of the place. 

 The frequent occurrence of the suffix Md, jungle or forest, in 

 names of localities, where now hardly a tree is to be found, is 



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