252 The Hunting Grounds 



as day, and allowing us to enjoy the magnificent 

 scenery of the celebrated Coonoor Pass, where " fern 

 flowers and grasses creep, fantastically tangled," amid 

 gigantic forest-trees, and the graceful bamboo con- 

 trasts with the darker foliage of the wild fig, and 

 thickets of rhododendron and wild camellias. The 

 wave-like looking sea of deep forest was diversified 

 with white lichen-covered precipices, and darkly- 

 frowning crags of every imaginable form and shape, 

 some thousands of feet in height, which seemed to 

 shake their fern-fringed foreheads at the passing tra- 

 veller as he followed the winding road leading down 

 the ravine, every bend of which, like a turn of the 

 kaleidoscope, revealed something new and pleasing to 

 the eye. 



Upon the summit of a rugged and almost inac- 

 cessible peak, which cast its dark shadow on our path, 

 is the small hill-fort, Hulli kul Droog, built by Hyder 

 Ali, which long since has been abandoned to the birds 

 and beasts of the forest. 



As I rode along I frequently heard the sharp bark 

 of the elk above the murmur of the mountain-stream, 

 which glistened like silver in the rays of the moon as 

 it glided over rounded masses of granite and smooth 

 angular pieces of green stone, or, leaping in little cas- 

 cades, dashed foaming down the steep ravine ; and at 

 times I distinguished the distant hoarse roar of the 

 tiger reverberating through the woods, which was 



