204 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
when three or four days old, and he will see, upon 
her unequal disk, the very spot from which the Neil- 
gherries were cut off. The horns are seen to project 
beyond the unillumined portion of the sphere, exhibit- 
ing what the English peasant calls “ the old moon in 
the new moon’s arms,” and this imperfect part of the 
circumference is that whence came the Neilodierries. 
O 
If the philosopher endeavour to explain the optical 
illusion, the Koimbatoori listens politely to the end of 
his exposition, and then tells him that his argument 
must go for nothing, since he himself must have 
been convinced, even though unconverted, by the 
more simple and comprehensible tale of Ram and 
Ravana. 
The Neilgherries are inhabited by three distinct 
races, who call themselves aborigines ; the Kotas, 
the Burgas, and the Thodas. These several tribes 
hold themselves entirely apart, the one from the 
other, except as the Burgas are tenants of the 
Thodas, in whom is the right of soil. They appear 
to emulate dissimilitude in all things, although 
apparently free from jealousy or aversion. Their 
abodes, their laws, their language, their religion (if 
a faint notion of a supreme Power may be so called), 
their habits and pursuits, their costume, their very 
persons, are almost as dissimilar as it would be 
possible to make them. The Kotas, forming about 
a tenth part of the whole population, are a wretched, 
insignificant, degraded race ; unsightly in person, 
