1847.] 



Neilgherry Hills, ^c. 



107 



" of the globe, and to doubt for a moment of their having had the 



** same origin would be absurd, as they all bear the same striking 

 characteristics, whether they be in India, on the shores of the 



*' Mediterranean, in France, Denmark, in Sweden or Norway, or on 



" the coast, or in the interior of our island." 



*' Pandoo-koolies," says Mr. Hough in his letters on the Neil- 



gherries, is the term applied by the Natives to the cairns on the Ma- 

 labar side of the mountains. 



When comparing the barrows of the Neilgherries with those in 



Dorsetshire, I omitted to mention that in one of those ancient Celtic 

 cemeteries was found a young bullock's head enclosed in a patera 

 of earthenware. It is very remarkable that in resemblance between 

 the urns found in the English barrows and the urns of the Neilgher- 

 ries extends even to the material ; in some of the Dorsetshire 

 barrows the urns were made of a highly finished and glazed red pot- 

 tery. Many of the Neilgherry urns have been admired for this rich 

 red glazing, particularly one discovered by Mr. Moegling. The 

 zigzag or harrow-headed-moulding moreover which is the usual or- 

 nament of the Celtic-urns is conspicuous on all found on the Neilgher- 

 ries. 



Chapter 9th. 



As the object of my investigations is the truth, and I am not 

 obstinately espoused to any one of my theories to the exclusion of 

 the probabilities of another, I shall now recur to what I have pre- 

 viously advanced respecting the possibility of the ancient cairns 

 having belonged to a people whose religion was Buddhism or that 

 branch of it adopted by the Jains. Even were this established, it 

 would not detract from the force of my arguments respecting the 

 descent of the Thautawars from a Celto Scythic ancestry, who burnt 

 their dead and enclosed the ashes in holes or urns buried under 

 cairns; because the Thautawars of the present day preserve the 

 practice. In favor of the cairns being the cemeteries of Buddhists 

 are the following reasons additional to the ones previously adducefl. 



1. There is a tradition to the effect that the Pandavers once in- 

 habited the Neilgherries. By this term perhaps may be understood 

 the Pandyan kings of Southern India, though Uterally translated, it 

 means the ancient gods, but as lonism or the apotheosis of mortals 

 has prevailed in India as elsewhere, we may render it the ancient 

 rulers. 



