EXPIilirATOET IKTEODtrCTION. 7 



community. People were taken by surprise. Some entirely 

 disbelieved that such a country and climate could exist with- 

 in twelve degrees of the equator ; others, who understood 

 the principle on which the temperature of elevated regions 

 is regulated, could not conceive how the Neilgherries, so long 

 within the limits of the Company's possessions, should have 

 thitherto escaped notice; and consequently presumed that their 

 elevation was far less than it was described to be ; and, but 

 for the two disinterested persons alluded to, these celebrat- 

 ed mountains might have been consigned to the vault of 

 all the Capulets. To show how very easy it is to pass from 

 the sublime to the ridiculous, idle gossip had been busy 

 with the Neilgherries. It was confidently reported, and as 

 eagerly believed by the natives, that there was a race of white 

 giants on the Neilgherries, regular magicians and enchanters, 

 who were governed by the giant Eawun himself ; and con- 

 sequently that it would be prudent to allow the Gogs and 

 Magogs to remain in undisturbed possession of their own 

 cloud-wrapt summits. The reign of prejudice and scepticism, 

 however, gradually gave way to the slow, but sure induc- 

 tions of reason and the tests of experience ; and the commu- 

 nities of Madras and Bombay were at length awakened to a 

 just sense of the blessings, which were in store for them by 

 possessing in their own circle and within the reach of their 

 members, an asylum, to which they might, under almost 

 every form of disease, resort with every probability of ad- 

 vantage, and eventual recovery. 



The Eail-road abeady completed to Arcot, about seventy- 

 one miles of the distance from Madras, and which is in rapid 

 progress of extension towards the opposite coast, with a 

 branch to the foot of the Hills, will, it is expected, be finish- 

 ed in about two years and a half, and will then render the 



