644 Notes, chiefly Geological, [No. 165. 



tails to strike like so many little cobra de capellas. Until gorged with blood, 

 they move in this way with considerable rapidity. I have only found them 

 troublesome during the monsoon, when the paths and trees are drip- 

 ping with rain. In the dry season they retire to the marshes and other 

 moist situations. Dr. Davy describes a similar sort of jungle leech in 

 his History of Ceylon,* and says that their bites have in too many in- 

 stances occasioned the loss of limb, and even of life. He mentions various 

 remedies, but I found the best was to wash the leg with tepid water at 

 the end of the march ; rest it, and to avoid, above all things, scratching 

 the bite. In case of a wounded vein, burnt rag may be applied to stop 

 the haemorrhage. 



Culgund is a revenue choukie ; contains about thirty or forty houses 

 chiefly of Goudahs, Komtis, and a few Attiah brahmans ; and was 

 lately occupied by the insurgents under Appiah, Mallepa, and Timmapa 

 Goudah, who were however soon dislodged by Colonel Williamson's 

 force, which marched down the Bisly Ghaut from Bangalore. 



About two miles from Culgund 1 crossed the Udhulla stream, which 

 was then running with frightful velocity, on a rude raft hastily con- 

 structed on the spot of a few green bamboos lashed together. 



The sand of this stream abounds in bits of garnet, quartz, and frag- 

 ments chiefly of hornblendic rocks, which now become the principal 

 surface rock, though covered by thick beds of red clay into which the 

 hornblende schist passes by weathering. Laterite is now seen less fre- 

 quently, as the ascent of the ghauts commences at the bottom of the 

 Bisly Pass, about one mile from Udhulla. 



Ascent of the Bisly Ghaut. The ascent lies up a transverse break in 

 the lowered prolongation of the ghauts, immediately to the north of 

 the mountain Subramani, and for some distance along the right bank 

 of the Subramani river. This sacred mountain is the highest peak in 

 this part of the ghaut chain, though only rising, it is said, to the eleva- 

 tion of 561 1 feet above the level of the sea. Its summit was concealed 

 in monsoon clouds, but its bare shoulders of grey granite rise in a 

 magnificent sweep from the green forests which mantle its back, and 

 fringe its base. 



After leaving the river bank of the stream, the road leads for four 

 miles up the steepest part of the Pass, relieved here and there by short 

 * Travels in Ceylon, pp. 103 and 104. 



