62 



The Neilgherry Mountains. 



[No. 34, 



but they make no offerings to the Todars in the shape of " goodoo," 

 probably from their occupying land rather below the plateau to which 

 the Todars lay claim. When driven to extremities for food the Eru- 

 lars betake themselves to the jungles on the slopes of the hills, and, 

 seeming to have no fear for w^ild beasts, hunt and destroy sambre, spot- 

 ted deer, jungle sheep, and other game, with great expertnese. They 

 also search for bees wax, which finds a ready sale in the plains. But 

 many lose their lives in this pursuit, through the bears which are 

 numerous in the eastern part of the Hills, and whose fondness for 

 honey often brings them into contact with the collectors of wax. 



The Coorumburs are not, strictly speaking, a 



The Coorumburs. . , _ ' j r o' 



tribe of mountaineers, since many sects of the 



same people are found in various parts of the plains, especially to- 

 wards the southward, and those who do frequent the Neilgherries in- 

 habit the lowest slopes, and are perpetually migrating from spot to 

 epot, erecting their little huts usually on grassy patches, in the midst 

 of the densest and most wild forests. Those who are met with on 

 the eastern side of the Hills are called " Mooloo-Cooruniburs" im- 

 plying "thorny" or jungle Coorumburs, to distinguish them in some 

 degree from the Coorumburs of the west country. 



They are small in stature, and their squalid and uncouth appear- 

 ance and wild matted hair might seem to give some cause, with so 

 timid a race as the Burghers, for imputing to them the fiendish and 

 preternatural powers with which their superstition invests them. If 

 a Burgher meets a Coorumbur, not summoned at seed or harvest time, 

 in his path, he will fly fron:i him as from a wild beast ; and if too close 

 to escape his dreaded glance, he will return home and resign himself 

 to a fate which he deems inevitable ; often in fact inducing sickness by 

 the prostration of body and mind which is thus supervened. I may 

 here mention that a popular belief exists that the Coorumburs have 

 an equal proprietary right in the soil of the Neilgherries, having come to 

 them at a period coeval with, or antecedent to, the migration to them of 

 the Todars. The Coorumburs cultivate some land on the lower slopes 

 of the Hills and raise small crops of dry grain, but they depend for 

 their supplies chiefly on the fees in kind which they receive from the 

 Burghers, for the offices performed by them in consecrating their crops 

 and seed, as has been already described in treating of the Burghers. 

 Those however who are met with in the forests on the western slopes 

 of the Neilgherries are more industrious, employing themselves chiefly 



