TOPOGEAPHY. 61 



ing one or two of these valleys, the range becomes broken 

 into a succession of small conical rocky hills, at some distance 

 apart, and surrounded by a sort of table^land, on which 

 Kotergherry is placed. The country in its neighbourhood 

 is covered by bushes, has but few trees or forests, and is 

 neither so picturesque nor so varied as on the opposite side 

 of the hills. It is intersected by numerous deep valleys, de- 

 scending gradually from the centre, and debouching into the 

 low country. One of the most remarkable of these is known 

 as the Orange valley, from the number of wild orange and 

 lime trees found in it. It commences at the N. E. angle of 

 Dodabet, and makes a sweep round the base of the Kotergher- 

 ry table-land, till it arrives opposite the Guzzlehutty Pass, 

 when it descends abruptly into the low country. Its general 

 level is much below that of the table-land, probably not ex- 

 ceeding 4,500 feet above the sea, from which circumstance, and 

 its being shut in on both sides by steep hills, its average tem- 

 perature is much higher than that of any neighbouring point 

 on the hills. The soil in the bottom of the valley is exceed- 

 ingly deep and rich, and the character of the vegetation ap- 

 proaches the tropical, or at least that of the southern por- 

 tions of the temperate regions. 



DiMHiJTTT is situated on a plateau between Kotergherry 

 and the Orange valley, lower than the former. 



Beyond Kotergherry, the hills run out into a number of 

 long narrow ridges, gradually descending into the low coun- 

 try of Coimbatoor, but, though in some places rocky, scarce- 

 ly any where so precipitous as the western face of the hills, 

 and the scenery is consequently less grand and striking. 

 Immediately opposite the termination of the hills in this 

 direction, and separated from them by a deep valley filled 

 with dense jungle, is the Guzzlehutty Pass, leadhig from 



