274 



MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 



CHAP. XI. 



Early 

 History. 



second day from Manarecate * found them at the foot of a steep hill 

 up which their route lay. On the third day they reach a Badaga 

 village called Meleuntao (? Melur or Melkundah), containing between 

 one and two hundred inhabitants. The priest and deacon previously 

 sent are said to have arrived thus far. Here they met also with the 

 chief of the Todas, who agreed to call his people together so that they 

 might have an opportunity of conversing with them. On the follow- 

 ing day the Jesuit father tried to converse with the Badagas on the 

 subject of Christianity. He also had an interview with the Toda priest 

 called Pollem (Palal) outside the Badaga village, which he would not 

 enter for fear of pollution. They saw some Toda women, and gave 

 them looking glasses and hanks of thi^ead, with which they were much 

 pleased. The third day of their sojourn on the hills was spent in a 

 visitation of some of the Toda settlements, which are very correctly 

 described, as also their dress, diet, manners, and customs. They 

 could not give much account of their own origin, and gave no infor- 

 mation leading to the supposition that either they or their ancestors 

 ever had anything to do with any form or profession of Christianity. 

 They simply said that they had heard that their ancestors came 

 from the east, that one party settled on these mountains, and 

 another party descended into the plains. Their number was supposed 

 to be about 1,000, scattered pretty equally over four mountain 

 districts. Feeling the cold, and the Samorin's nephew beginning to 

 be indisposed, they now began to arrange for their descent into the 

 low country. Ere they left, they promised to return within a year 

 and make a longer stay. Circumstances however prevented them 

 from so doing. The friendly Badagas showed them a better road than 

 that by which they made the journey there." 



The route by which they returned may have been the Gudalur 

 or Karkur Ghats. Mr. Breeks quotes a notice (furnished by 

 Dr. Gundert) of the Todas by a Carmelite priest, gathered 

 from reports of the tribe current on the west coast, who 

 visited Malabar in 1657. It speaks of the mountains where 

 they dwelt as " in the kingdom of the Zamorin." But how slight 

 the hold was that the Zamorin had evea on the ghat country 

 below the Nilagiris is manifest from the fact that his nephew's 

 retinue had to leave their weapons behind them before entering 

 the country. The Badagas are simply spoken of as friendly. At 

 this period the power of the Mysore house was rapidly rising. 



1 Mr. Whitehouae says, " I think the Manarecate must be the place called 

 Manaur in Ward's Government Survey Map, about Lat. ll^ Long. 76° 30", 

 because it was 13 leagues inland from Tanor, and from thence 12 leagues to the 

 Todamala. There is a Manaar at the foot of the Sundapatti Ghat, but this ia 

 too near. This idea receives support from Buchanan's Journey through Mysore 

 and Canara, Vol. II, p. 434, veherehe speaks of a tract of land occupying part of 

 the mountains between Malabar and Coimbatore, divided into two districts,^. 

 Attapadi and Agrata, Cadava, and says that the pass leading to Attapadi is called 

 Manarghat." 



