MANUAL OF THE NILAOIRI DISTRICT, 2i3 



known that Asoka caused topes and monuments to be erected far CHAP. x. 

 beyond the actual limits of his kingdom and there ai'e also some . " 



grounds for connecting the present Kurumbas of the Hills with 



the Kadamba Rdjas whose suzerainty succeeded his in South India 

 and who spread themselves over a large portion of the peninsula 

 some centuries later. But the name may have been learned in 

 Mysore^ and merely applied by the Badagas to similar structures 

 which they found when they came to the Hills. 



Of these ruins there is veiy little to be said. They are met Ruined 

 with not unfrequently on the plateau, but are not remarkable in ^^ ^^^^' 

 any way. There is nothing to distinguish them from the ruins 

 of modern huts, either as to size or as regards the quality of the 

 masonry. Their age is mainly apparent by the overgrowth of 

 shrubs and trees which frequently conceal them almost entirely. 

 Those on the largest scale are at Fairlawns a few miles from 

 Ootacamand, and Colonel Congreve was induced by the position 

 of some of the walls and by the amount of ground they cover, 

 to suggest that they might indicate the site of an ancient 

 Capital. To me it seems more probable that this was once a 

 %allage of gold diggers from the Waindd, for in this and other 

 offshoots of Nanjanad valley ^ may be seen mounds of earth along 

 the banks of the streams where the soil has been washed for gold, 

 lyitis possible at one time that this part of the plateau yielded 

 I gold and as it lay within the Kongu or Coimbatore country, 

 ; gold-seekers from the north and west would have to stand upon 

 the defensive. This would account for the remains of a strong 

 fort under shelter of which the village may have sprung up,^ 

 and may throw light on the remarkable fact of the existence 

 on the Hills — which, for ages perhaps before the advent of the 

 Badagas, were mere buffalo-walks — of an outcaste race of workers 

 in gold and other metals, the Kotas. 



Besides the ruins at Fairlawns which have not been clearly Forts, 

 identified, three forts originally existed, two of which are 

 still in a fair state of preservation. The one best known is 

 situated on summit of the Hulikal Drug and commands the 

 Coonoor ghdt and the low country about Coimbatore. It is said 

 to have been used by Tippu during his wars with the English as 

 a stronghold for his prisoners, and among the stories of his cruelties 

 is one which charges him with hurling some of them from the 

 top when he found it expedient to get rid of them. But these 

 stories are probably pure fictions. 



' One of these is the valley behind Bishopsdown and Fernhill, the Tdda name 

 of which is Piinthut, or gold-thnt (?}, pat, village. Mr. Broiigh- Smyth, the emi- 

 nent Australian Mining Engineer, who recently examined the Fairlawns Valley, 

 expressed a firm opinion that it contained ancient gold workings. 



^ See Madras Journal of Literature and Science, No. 32, 1847, p. 97- Article on 

 " Antiquities of the Neilgherries '' by Colonel Congreve. 



