6 



The Neilglierry Mountains. 



[No. 34, 



^ . , „ The extensive and numerous swamps which oc- 



Dramecl Swamps. ^ ... 



cur on the Neilg-herries also, when drained, furnish 



most vahiable soil, either for cultivation per se, or for top dressing 

 for poor land. But in this latter form it is never used by the Hill 

 cultivators, who are very backward in the knowledge of the uses and 

 properties of particular manures, as will be treated of under an en- 

 suing head, viz., " Modes of cultivation." 



^ , The Neilgherry mountains constitute one of 



Natural aspect. " 



those singular features presented in the physical 

 geography of southern India, of comparatively isolated masses up- 

 reared amidst the vast plains which extend over the surface of the 

 country, pointing either to foci or points of ancient volcanic eruption 

 by which they have been formed, or to evidences of the wearing 

 agency which has reduced the surrounding tracts to their present re- 

 markably uniform level state ; while mountain masses, forming a core 

 of tougher substance, and of material less prone to decomposition, 

 have resisted the corroding action — and have been thus left in the 

 form of isolated and mural precipices, towering above the surround- 

 ing country. 



The summit or plateau of these mountains presents a most varied 

 and diversified aspect. Although the land extends over its limits in 

 ceaseless undulations, approaching in no instance to the character of a 

 champagne country, and frequently breaking into lofty ridges and 

 abrupt rocky eminences, it may yet, speaking in general terms, be 

 pronounced smooth and practicable to a degree seldom, indeed I be- 

 lieve, in no instance, observed in any of the mountain tracts of equal 

 elevation which occur in the continent of India. 



On all sides the descent to the plains is sudden and abrupt, the ave- 

 rage fall from the crest to the general level below, being about 6,000 

 feet on all sides, save the north, where the base of the mountains rests 

 upon the elevated land of Wynaad and Mysore, which standing be- 

 tween 2 and 3,000 feet above the level of the sea form, as it were, a 

 steppe by which the main fall towards the sea is broken. From both 

 of these elevated tracts the Neilgherries are separated by a broad and 

 extensive valley through which the Moyaar river flows after descend- 

 ing from the Hills by a fall at Neddiwuttum in the north-west angle 

 of the plateau ; and the isolation of this mountain territory would be 

 complete, but for a singular sharp and precipitous ridge of granite 

 peaks, which projects out from the base of a remarkable cone called 



