98 



Topographical Report on the Neilgherries. 



[July 



was comniilted, in placing them on the sunnmits of hills, where they 

 are exposed to the violence and humidity of the monsoons, and the 

 searching cold of the dry winds, and where a supply of water is only 

 to be obtained by laborious carriage from the valleys below, ©r from 

 some distant stream ; as if the object were to find a centre for a pano- 

 rama, rather than a convenient and agreeable site for building. 



The medium temperature throughout the year, on an average of 

 «even years, being not more than 56 of Fahrenheit in the house ; and 

 beneficial exercise being taken in the open air on horseback, without 

 any risk of injury from the sun, from four to six daily, and at any time 

 in a covered vehicle ; the fact that European clothing and flannel can 

 and ought to be worn constantly ; and that the comfort and cheerfuL 

 ness of a fireside assimilates the condition of the visitor to that which 

 constitutes so much of the pleasure of existence to an European in his 

 native land; and above all the inestimable advantage of refreshing 

 sleep, in a pure and cold atmosphere, by which an unaccustomed source 

 of renovation is nightly afforded to the exhausted frame of the inva- 

 lid; form altogether a multitude of propitious circumstances, the 

 amount of which is as large, as the enjoyment of them is advantageous. 

 A result of this temperature is the more wholesome state of animal 

 food, previous to its final preparation for the table. Meat will keep, in 

 the colder and drier season, fourteen days, and longer, before cooking; 

 therefore all that vis insila which renders meat recently killed unpala- 

 table and unwholesome, is totally destroyed, and the fibres become 

 delicate, and the juices lose the tendency to fermentation and acridity, 

 which are such impediments to digestion ; and here again the enfeebled 

 assimilating powers of the invalid find an essential help, which in vain 

 is to be sought for in less elevated regions within the tropics. Here 

 are to be had the two luxuries par excellence, which were said to be as 

 hard to find in the East Indies as the philosopher's stone, namely, cold 

 air and cold water, and both in a state of the greatest purity. 



Kotagherry and Dimhutty are within one mile of each other, about 

 seventeen miles from Ootacamund, to the east. The former is 835 feet 

 lower than the lake of Ootacamund, and overlooks the plains of Coim- 

 batore. The thermometer is usually six degrees higher than at Oota- 

 camund, and the weather there generally is milder and drier, as it gets 

 but little of the south-west monsoon, and therefore frequently agrees 

 better with invalids, soon after their first arrival, than Ootacamund, 

 which many find too cold. Some who although resident here some 

 time, have complained of indigestion, arising from torpidity of the liver, 

 lind much benefit from a change to a less cold temperature, where the 



