80 [ The Neilgherry Mountains. [No. 34, 



composed animal matter. On breaking these pots or urns, which 

 many of them are in the form of, they are found to contain ashes, 

 charcoal, and pieces of half calcined bones; with sometimes a small 

 quantity of a pure scentless fluid, which in two instances I found to 

 be pure water slightly impregnated with lime. Images of tigers, elks, 

 bisons, leopards and some domestic animals, pieces of half decomposed 

 bronze resembling spear heads, tripods, &c., are also found occasional- 

 ly, mixed with the other remains ; but it is a singular fact that on 

 breaking up the strong pavement of slabs of stone, with which the 

 cairns are covered in, and mining down until a second pavement is come 

 upon, which, from its tightness and weight has, to all appearance, never 

 been disturbed since it was first laid, we find on removing it that the 

 contents of the vault below, instead of being laid in the order befitting 

 the repose of consecrated ashes, are generally smashed and broken up 

 and mixed with the soil, leaving barely one or two pots of bones and 

 ashes entire, just as though the pickaxe of the destroying explorer 



Todavs believed by ^^^^ already there. Some ingenious writers 

 lu^^^of thG*^andeS ^^^^^ endeavoured to build up upon the evidence 

 Scythians. q£ these cairns a theory, to the efiect that their 



constructors must have been a tribe of the ancient Scythians, who 

 having wandered into this remote part of Asia, preferred a settlement 

 on the Hills they had discovered, to the hopeless undertaking of a 

 return ; and pursuing their hypothesis, and discovering instances in 

 the customs and habits of the present Todars, which assimilate them 

 to the race which history describes under the name of Scythians, 

 they pass on to the conclusion that their ancestors were the founders 

 of these tombs, and the descendants of the ancient Scythians. But 



Cairns afford no clue assumption is in my opinion erroneous. So 



to tiie History of the prejudiced and bio^oted a race as the Todars 



Todars. ^ ^ 



would naturally cherish with the utmost venera- 

 tion and solicitude any vestiges of mortality, which their most vague 

 tradition should point to as monuments of their ancestors ; and there- 

 fore when we find them ofi*ering not the slightest objection to the 

 cairns being broken open and their contents rifled, and even volun- 

 tarily guiding strangers to unexplored ones, aiding them in the work 

 of destruction, it is reasonable to conclude that they form no link of 

 communication between the present race of Todars, and any tribe of 

 people by whom these singular monuments may have been raised. 



All clue being thus lost, it would be idle to follow out further any 

 speculation as to the history of the Neilgherries prior to the ^'irst 



