60 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
When we quitted Panamgoody, we retreated from 
the sea, directing our course in a straight line to Pa- 
lamcotta. From this latter town, after a day’s halt, we 
proceeded to Tinevelly. Here, though the country is 
extremely well wooded, there are extensive patches, 
highly cultivated, and eminently picturesque. The 
champaign is hounded by a range of mountains, 
which, when the sun sinks behind them, fling their 
huge shadows over an extensive district at once po- 
pulous and fruitful. Before we left Tinevelly, we 
took the opportunity of visiting the waterfall at Pup- 
panassum, which is, perhaps, upon the whole, the 
most stupendous object of its kind in the Carnatic. 
The approach to it lay through a long narrow valley, 
at the termination of which the fall deposits its 
waters in an unfathomable pool, whence a new river 
seems to issue, winding its placid course through a 
plain nearly level with the sea. Upon our approach 
to the fall through this valley, confined on either side 
by lofty hills, the view of it was frequently obstructed 
by the intersections of the mountain round which we 
occasionally had to wind. We followed the tortuous 
course of the stream, along the banks of which we 
saw a great number of devotees on their way to bathe 
in those sacred waters, and to offer their genuflexions 
and prostrations upon a spot, consecrated at once by 
extreme antiquity and very awful local traditions. 
These slaves of the most besotted superstitions upon 
earth did not appear to be at all pleased at the idea 
of seeing the place profaned by the unhallowed feet of 
faringees or Christians, whom they hold in absolute 
abhorrence. They passed us in dogged silence, and 
