MYSORE, CANARA, AND MALABAR. 
35 
by the walls of the fortifications, which present nothing to the view CHAPTER 
but a brown dusty mud. The farther we advance into the Mysore, 
Raja’s dominions, they appear to be kept in better repair. 
Part of the country indicated that it had last night been watered 
by a very heavy rain ; for the surface continued to be wet. This 
had allayed the dust and heat, removed the desert appearance of 
the land, and showed much of the soil to be of a good quality, 
On this day’s journey I had an opportunity of observing one of Salt, 
the places where salt is made. It was low and moist, with a black 
mould, consisting of a mixture of sand and clay, that from its ap- 
pearance I should have reckoned a good soil ; but the impregnation 
of salt renders it greatly inferior, for cultivation, to soils of ap- 
parently a worse quality, which are free from salt. The natives 
allege, that, if they walk much on this saline earth, their bare feet 
become blistered. In the dry season, the surface of this earth is 
scraped off, and collected in heaps. In front of these heaps the 
native salt-makers construct a semicircle of small round cisterns, 
each about three feet in diameter, and a foot deep. The sides and 
floors of these cisterns are made of dry mud; and each, at its bottom, 
on the side toward the heaps of saline earth, has a small aperture, 
with a wooden spout, to convey the brine into an earthen pot that 
is placed in a cavity under it. The bottoms of the cisterns are 
covered with straw, and then the saline earth is put in, till it rises 
nearly to the level of the tops of the walls. Water is now poured 
on the surface of the saline earth, and, in filtering through into the 
pots, carries with it all th^ salt. The inert earth is then thrown 
out behind the cisterns, and new earth is put in, for impregnating 
more water. In the mean time the brine is emptied into a cavity 
cut in a rock, and the evaporation is performed entirely by the 
. sun. This salt is sold at the rate of twenty Seers for a Sultany 
Fanam , while the same sum procures eight Seers only of Madras salt. 
The natives say that it is sufficiently wholesome ; but my Madras 
servants pretend, that it is capable of producing all manner of 
