1)2 



Topographical Report on the Neilgherries. 



[July 



Lut no offensive odour proceeds from them. Where these valleys join 

 others at favourable inclinations the water is carried off, and fovu.s rills 

 and brooks, which by long and tortuous courses reach the Pykarree 

 river, which runs from south to north at the base of the Koondahs. 

 Proceeding westward twelve miles or more, the hills are more abrupt, 

 sharp, precipitous and lofty, the valleys deeper and narrower and have 

 more streams which are fed by numerous cascades from the tall sides 

 of the hills. The Pykarree river is the chief drain of the western 

 range, and carries the collected waters down to the Moyar river, 

 passing by Seegoor. Thus no great accumulation of water can take 

 place, and no evil to the hill country would in all probability follow 

 if it were retained. There are no wells, but reservoirs are often form- 

 ed where springs rise. The clmiate is decidedly salubrious to those 

 who do not expose themselves too much to the sun or to the rain, and 

 who have no confirmed organic disease, which, perhaps, if hepatic, 

 no intertropical climate cnn remove, but even to them it frequently 

 gives that relief which cannot be obtained in the low country. Bene- 

 fit is chiefly derived by children, who thrive here as well as in Europe, 

 and by those who suffer only from general debility in the low country, 

 to whom it is indeed a solace. At the same time rheumatic and gouty 

 persons are effectually relieved, and obstinate intermittents, even of 

 monthly intervals, are cured. Hepatic disease is less certain, because 

 the degree of its advancement is not precisely determinable, and where 

 progress in organic deterioration has been made, the climate, particu- 

 larly in the dry months, from December to April, does not Agree with 

 it, and indeed must often be supposed to cause or at least favour 

 the rapid formation of abscess — most probably arising from the stop- 

 page of the drain of perspiration. 



Dysentric complaints, if unconnected with hepatic disease, do well 

 here in the dry weather, and even if the affection of the liver be but 

 slight, and more of the nature of congestion than inflammation, un- 

 attended by organic alteration, recovery is by no means hopeless. 



Cutaneous diseases, the consequence of debility in the low country, 

 also do well here, but their progress is slow, and I am of opinion slower 

 than at sea, but with time and care here they finally recover. 



Of the therapeutic means adopted for the recovery of invalids who 

 resort to the hills for health, there are few more beneficial, and yet so 

 little attended to, as warm clothing, the chief part of which is flannel 

 worn next the skin. The sick man, the valetudinarian, and the healthy 

 man, also (who visits the hills for pleasure), all alike find the benefit 

 of flannel, which, when worn from the neck to the soles of the feet; 



