450* 
THE BESSELY GAUT 
brated Gaut. The road has been formed with great labour out of a 
bed of loose rock, over which the torrents in winter had run with 
such force as to wash away ail the softer parts, and in several places 
to leave single rocks, of four or five feet diameter, standing in the 
centre of the road, not above two feet asunder. To get the palan- 
iqjiin over these was a tedious and difficult business: however it 
escaped uninjured. The boys were obliged to use sticks with iron 
spikes at the end, to prevent themselves from being thrown forward 
by the weight of the palanquin, though 1 walked the whole way, 
not only to relieve them, but to admire the sublimity of the scene. 
We had entered a forest of the largest trees of the East, several of 
which were one hundred feet in the stem before a single branch 
extended ; yet the descent was so stQep, that I was frequently on a 
level with their tops at so small a distance, as to be able to distin- 
guish them by tlie gleam of the numerous torches which accom- 
panied me, but which were insufficient to enlighten the impenetra- 
ble canopy of foliage that for miles concealed the face of heaven, 
or the deep gloom of the abyss into which we seemed to be des- 
cending. In the daytime the scene could not have been half so 
awful or magnificent. Purneah had continued his attentions to us, 
by an endeavour to repair the worst part of the road : had nothing 
been done, I know not hxm we should have ever passed it. General 
Wellesley made the road perfectly good ; but the descent was so 
steep, and the torrents so violent, that one rainy season reduced 
it to the state in which 1 found it. Our descent was impeded by 
meeting with numerous droves of oxen which were ascending the 
Gaut loaded with salt, having carried down grain to Mangalore. 
Towards day I came to a turn in the road^ where an opening 
