1846. J from Seringapatam, to Cannanore. 319 



The houses are neat, usually thatched, and shaded by a small ve- 

 randah in front : all romantically situated in a sylvan amphitheatre, 

 surrounded by mountain peaks and ridges. 



It being market day, the bazar was so crowded that I could scarcely 

 pass. Here were Mapillays groaning under bundles of odoriferous 

 salt-fish from Malabar and Canara, and hundreds of bullocks laden with 

 salt from Cannanore and Tellicherry, which is sold all over Mysore. 

 Then came the Coorg market people from their sequestered villages, 

 with bags of rice and paddy, baskets of eggs, fruits, fowls, &c. &c. 



The clean, neat, white dress of the Coorg females is pleasingly con- 

 trasted with the gaudy dark petticoats of the wandering Brinjaris, 

 who never wash or change this article of dress until it drops off, 

 heavy with filth and vermin. 



The Coorg men generally wear a sort of smock-frock, like the Baju of 

 a Malay or Bedouin woman, and usually go armed with their peculiar 

 knives which serve as weapons of defence, and also to clear the jungles 

 they daily tread. 



The larger of these knives (a sort of hatchet), is carried unsheathed 

 in a brass socket, attached to the belt on the right side ; the smaller is 

 in front. 



The Coorg does not differ much in feature from the Mysorean, but is 

 invariably fairer, from the sandy forest and moist climate in which he 

 lives. He is grave in manner, and in general studiously civil to Euro- 

 peans. They are nearly all Lingayets, and I observed many of them 

 worshipping the numerous images of the Indian Apis-Nundi, set up in 

 in the recesses of the forest. 



Like the Malays, they usually live in separate campongs, on the 

 edge of the rising swells which divide the rice fields, and which are 

 well shaded by cocoa, jack, and other fruit trees. 



The Heggulla Pass. — From Verajunderpetta to the top of the Heg- 

 gulla Pass, is about five miles of forest, ascent and descent, but rising 

 on the whole to the edge of the pass at Bokerah. 



Gneiss — in some places overlaid with laterite and penetrated by 

 dykes of basaltic greenstone — massive hornblende rock, and glimmering 

 hornblende schist, are the rocks seen both in detached blocks, and in 

 situ at this watershed of the great line of elevation. The dense na- 

 ture of the jungle and the rain which now began to pour down, were 

 great obstacles to a full examination of the geological features of this 



