1838.] I'opographical Report, on the Neilgherries. 



103 



The poorer class serve those who are in good circumstances, and 

 live upon their earnings, added to what they receive from the Burghers 

 as tribute. They never serve any but their own caste. 



In sickness no medicines are administered, and no salt is made use 

 of except on particular days. 



The Burghers are the husbandmen of the hills, and are diligent in 

 tilling the ground, from which they raise barley, the poppy, the ama- 

 ranthus, and the grain which they furnish the Todars. They have buf- 

 faloes, oxen, and goats, in abundance, and live on their milk and ghee, 

 and the grain above mentioned, which they grind into meal, and eat 

 mixed with water, which forms a thick dough. They eat no animal 

 food. Having a supply of meal they can travel without difficulty; 

 as when hungry they have nothing more to do than to sit down by one 

 of the brooks of water, with which the hills abound, and make a sa- 

 tisfactory repast. Their houses are of a different shape and materials 

 from those of the Todars, whose dwellings are separate huts, while 

 those of the Burghers resemble the better kinds of cottages in the low 

 country, having walls generally made of stone and mud, and good 

 thatched roofs. The Burghers' houses, however, are not separate 

 tenements in distinct enclosures, but a line of dwellings under one 

 roof, and divided by party walls, which do not always reach to the top 

 of the roofs inside. Sometimes there are two or three or more lines, 

 forming streets. The sites of these villages, although not so pictu- 

 resque as those of the Todar munds, are always good in an agricultural 

 point of view, and often pretty. Some gently swelling knoll, or tole- 

 rably level spot, on which they can cultivate their best crops, with the 

 aid of manure from their herds, which graze on the adjacent hills and 

 valleys, whose rapidly declining sides forbid, or give little encourage- 

 ment to the use of the plough, on account of the devastating force of 

 the rain and torrents, which pour down them, carrying away all plants 

 whose roots are not well fixed in firm soil, such as cultivated ground 

 never is. The Burghers marry, and have each man his wife, as in the 

 low country, but they are said to confine their intermarriages very 

 much to their own relations, and that to a degree prohibited among 

 Europeans. They are generally a healthy, but not a robust, race, and 

 are extremely filthy in their persons and practices. 



In the season for cultivating the ground, a Currumber is sent for, 

 who sacrifices a lamb in the field, and afterwards holds the plough for 

 a short distance. At the commencement of harvest, the Currumber is 

 also present, and reaps the first handful of grain, for which he receives 

 a portion of the produce. 



