270 PECULIAR HINDOO TRIBES. 



ishment and indignation on being informed that this would 

 not entitle them to a full acquittal. 



Another native race, altogether insignificant in point of 

 number, are yet extremely interesting, from the light which 

 their manners throw on the earliest state of Hindoo society. 

 The southern boundary of Mysore is for a considerable ex- 

 tent composed of the range of mountains called the IS'hil- 

 gerries, the loftiest of any in Southern India, and rising at 

 some points to upwards of 8000 feet. These elevated tracts 

 were not explored by the British till 1819, when the climate 

 even under the burning skies of the tropic, was found to be 

 almost as temperate as that of England. Its cool and 

 refreshing breezes, with the rich and romantic scenery of 

 hills, lakes, waterfalls, pastoral streams and valleys, render 

 this country a delightful retreat for the European invalid. 

 Government, accordingly, have formed there a sanitary sta- 

 tion, the particulars of which, and of its climate, are given 

 by Professor Jameson in the succeeding volume.* In the 

 highest valleys of the Nhilgerries are found a clan, called 

 Tudas, who do not exceed 600 in number, but are very 

 remarkable, as the only tribe yet discovered who are ignor- 

 ant of the mythology, language, learning, and manners, so 

 universally diffused over India. They are strangers to the 

 divinities who people the Hindoo pantheon ; even the cow 

 is not esteemed by them as sacred, though they attach cer- 

 tain religious ideas to the daily, which yields to them one 

 of the most valuable means of subsistence and commerce. 

 Their temples are dark hovels, in which a little shining 

 stone is the only object of worship; but from these the 

 Bramin is driven by them with anger and suspicion. Their 

 language has some resemblance to the Tamul and the Ma- 

 layalma, which are spoken in the plains below ; but not a 

 tincture of that copious infusion of Sanscrit which prevails 

 in these and the other Hindoo dialects. There is, therefore, 

 some probability that they arc indeed the remnant of the 

 aborigines of Southern India ; exhibiting what their ances- 

 tors were before they received those institutions which have 

 stamped upon the Hindoo race so peculiar a character. 



The Tudas are at once discovered to be a different people 

 from the inhabitants of the plains below. They are tall, 



•Vol.lii. p. 205. 



