86 CLIMATE. 



not only from these sources of information, but from per- 

 sonal observation, and official documents, I have no doubt 

 the public will have something practically useful. The 

 want is much felt. When about to proceed to the Neil- 

 gherries, last year, I could get but conflicting opinions re- 

 garding the routes, accommodation, climate, &c. and no copy 

 of Baikie was procurable at any of the Book -sellers. 



" It is surprising, that the advantages of the Blue Moun- 

 tains should have been so long overlooked, in a country 

 where European health is so precarious, and the necessity 

 of a change to a cool climate, is, so frequently, and so urgently 

 called for : in Bengal, they have scarcely attracted attention, 

 otherwise, how many invalids might have been saved a trip 

 to Australia, or the Cape, or even to England. 



" You wish for some remarks on " Kotergherry" and 

 " Coonoor." I would observe, that these are the fittest for 

 many classes of patients, on first ascending the hills, and 

 this adaptation of different stations, in the Neilgherries, to 

 different diseases, and to different stages of the same disease, 

 is a great advantage : they have also an atmosphere more 

 completely oceanic, than that of any other mountain range, 

 which renders them beneficial for a large class of invalids. 



" Those, capable of taking exercise in the open air, are in 

 the condition to derive the greatest advantage from the dim ate, 

 hence, the impropriety of sending patients, in an advanced 

 stage of disease, for they rarely do well. It is not so much 

 the natwre of the disease, as the stage of it, that is to be 

 considered. 



" In the second year of residence, the invalid may try 

 the more elevated, and bracing regions about Ootacamund. 



" The situation of Coonoor is rather confined, but it is 

 a pleasant, retired, and pretty summer residence, well shel- 



