Ixii APPENDIX. 



The utmost obscurity hangs over the early history of the Neilgherry 

 Hills, far beyond the period of the immigration of the " Todars" or 

 " Todawars ;" tradition amongst the present inhabitants, affords no clue 

 whatever to trace it. That they have been in former ages inhabited, 

 and that by a very peculiar race, evidence sufficient to show is furnish- 

 ed by the existence of the numerous " cairns," or rude tombs found 

 upon the summits of ahnost all the loftier mountains in every part of 

 the HiUs, the origin of which is so remote, that the Todars, recognized 

 as the most ancient inhabitants, have no tradition amongst themselves, 

 bequeathed by their ancestors, wliich even guides us to a surmise, as to 

 the race of people by whom they were constructed. As affording thus 

 almost the only land-marks, by which speculation as to the ancient state 

 of this remarkable region can be guided, these " cairns" seem to merit 

 a brief description. They are invariably situated, as has been already 

 mentioned, on the highest summits of the Hills, sometimes single but 

 more frequently in groups or rows of from 3 to 6. They are circular in 

 form, raised with large unhewn blocks of stone 4 feet or more above the 

 level of the ground, and varying in diameter from 12 or 15 feet to 25 or 

 30. The interior is hoUowed out to some depth below the original 

 surface, usually until the solid rock is reached, and the space thus 

 cleared filled with earthen pots, with the covers strongly luted on, 

 pieces of bone, charcoal, and fragments of pottery, all tightly packed 

 in a soil so black and finely pulverized, as to give cause to suppose it 

 to be decomposed animal matter. On breaking these pots or urns, 

 which many of them are in the form of, they are found to contain 

 ashes, charcoal, and pieces of half calcined bones ; with sometimes a 

 small quantity of a pure scentless fluid, which in two instances I found 

 to be pure water slightly impregnated with lime. Images of tigers, 

 elks, bisons, leopards and some domestic animals, pieces of half decom- 

 posed bronze resembling spear heads, tripods, &c., are also found oc- 

 casionally, mixed with the other remains ; but it is a singular fact that 

 on breaking up the strong pavement of slabs of stone, with which the 

 cairns are covered in, and mining down until a second pavement is 

 come upon, which, from its tightness and weight has, to all appearance, 

 never been disturbed since it was first laid, we find on removing it that 

 the contents of the vault below, instead of being laid in the order 

 befitting the repose of consecrated ashes, are generally smashed and 

 broken up and mixed with the soil leaving barely one or two pots of 

 bones and ashes entire, just as though the pickaxe of the destroy- 

 ing explorer had been already there. Some ingenious writers have 



