april — june, 1857.] over the Annamullay Mountains. 85 



them in puddles here and there ; and one about the seventh mile, 

 had a small stream running to the eastward. We crossed two 

 low rocky ridges from 30 to 50 feet high, but the road was re- 

 markably even upon the whole, till we reached the tenth mile, 

 where we made a steep ascent ; and crossed a saddle perhaps 150 

 feet in height, with hills on both sides. At this point a cut has 

 been made through the narrow edge of the ridge to drag timber 

 through, and the coolies knew it by the name of the Attripully 

 Fort, though in passing it, I could make out no enclosure nor 

 anything artificial, but the cut I rode through. It may however 

 be that there is an embankment which runs along the ridge, as 

 lines of fortification of this kind are found in all these Western 

 jungles, even when the appearance of the forest otherwise, would 

 lead us to suppose that man had never entered it. From this 

 ridge we descended rapidly into a bamboo jungle and in about 

 \ mile came to Attripully Fall. 



At this point a guard of four peons is stationed by the Travan- 

 core Government as a check on smuggling ; an establishment so 

 far successful, if my Teer guide's information is correct, that the 

 gangs, wearied with their journey, very generally, throw down 

 their burthens here, and give themselves up to sleep, while the 

 peons are cooking for them, and small blame either to the guard 

 which might be raised to ten times its present strength, and would 

 be still unable to resist the force, the smugglers on this path could 

 bring against it. From the account these peons give of the fever 

 at Attripully, I am inclined to think that though appearances are 

 in favour of its being as unhealthy as a dense bamboo jungle could 

 be, it is not by any means so bad as might be imagined ; and our 

 experience teaches that no one can say, except from actual trial, 

 what are, and what are not, the spots where fatal fever may be 

 found. Of the four peons stationed here, one was said to be ab- 

 sent with an attack of fever then ; but it may very well have 

 been that he was busy cooking for a smuggler's party or doing 

 a little business in the trade himself. One man in four after a 

 four months' residence is not so very bad a bill of health, consi- 

 dering, how the men are housed, even supposing (what was most 



