The Blue Mountains of Goa

Footnotes:






1. "Ducks" are the Bombayites in general; "Dingies" is the name popularly given to the smaller specimens of native craft. The Dun and the Drab are probably familiar to the reader's ears.




2. Bombahia, the Portuguese P.N. of the town: it was probably suggested by "Momba-devi," as the place was called by the Hindoos after the patron goddess of the spot.




3. The Nabob is the European, the Nawwab the Asiatic, grandee.




4. Note for readers geographically disposed.

This region, the Ariake of the Greeks, Kemkem of the Arabs, Kukan of the Hindoos, Concan of the present possessors, and, as Vincent says, "the pirate coast of all," is well adapted for its ancient occupation by a multitude of small ports, uninterrupted view along the coast, high ground favourable to distant vision, and the alternate land and sea breezes that oblige vessels to hug the shore. Moreover, the ports, besides being shallow, are defended against large ships by bars; a defect from which even Goa is not exempt, although Tavernier calls it "one of the finest harbours in the world, rivalling those of Toulon and Constantinople." The pirates were protected by the strength of the inland country, and, like the Greeks, had only to lie secure in port until they discovered their prey. During the Monsoon they cultivated the ground, or lived peaceably at home: when the fine weather set in, they launched their boats, and set out in quest of adventure. Pliny notices the depredations they committed on the Roman East India trade, and our early travellers are full of horrible tales about them.

It is curious to observe that the whole line of coast between the mouth of the Euphrates and Cape Comorin, has been infamous for the piratical propensities of the many and various tribes that inhabit it. The Persian Gulf still requires the presence of our armed cruisers; the ancient annals of Scinde enlarge upon its celebrity for robbery; the Coolies of Kutch and Guzerat were known as pirates from Marco Polo's time till A.D. 1800; the Angria territory was a nest of thieves till we destroyed their fleet; and Tavernier testifies that the natives of Malabar were not inferior in enterprise to their northern brethren.




5. They lie in lat. 15° 52' 30", about thirty-five miles from Goa, and seven off the shore, from which they are separated by a deep channel. The group consists of more than twenty small rocks, amongst which are six or seven about as large as the Sirens Isles in the Gulf of Salerno. The Greeks called them which Mr. Hamilton understands to signify "black rabbis;" and Vincent supposes them to have been so termed, because in form they may be fancied to resemble those animals crouching.




6. Porters and labourers.




7. The Portuguese tongue.




8. Their other great clerical establishment being the Seminary at Rachol, a town which, when the Portuguese first came to India, was the capital of the province of Salsette. In Tavernier's time the Jesuits had no less than five religious houses at Goa.




9. He raised the standard of revolt against the Indian government spiritedly but unsuccessfully.




10. "All thieves at Parga."




11. The name given to that breed of ponies on account of their extraordinary viciousness.




12. At that time, however, this horrible instrument of religious tyranny seems to have lost much of its original activity. When the dungeons were thrown open there was not a single prisoner within the walls, and Mons. de Kleguen asserts that no one then living remembered having seen an Auto da Fe.




13. About the end of the sixteenth century the Dutch sent ships round the Cape, and soon managed to secure the best part of the Eastern trade, formerly monopolized by the Portuguese.




14. The Grand Inquisitor.




15. The Holy Office had power over all but the Viceroy and Archbishop, and they did not dare openly to interpose in behalf of any prisoner, under pain of being reported to the inquisitor and his Council in Portugal, and being recalled. Even the Papal threats were disregarded by that dread tribunal.




16. No description of the building and its accommodations is given. Captain Marryat's graphic account of it in the "Phantom Ship," must be fresh in the memory of all readers. The novelist seems to have borrowed his account from the pages of Dellon.




17. An Arab chieftain sent a civil request to the governor, desiring liberty to buy provisions. The answer was a bit of pork wrapped up in paper, and a message, that such was the only food likely to be furnished. The chieftain's wife, who was a Sayyideh, a woman of the Prophet's tribe, and a lady of proper spirit, felt the insult so keenly, that she persuaded her husband and his tribe to attack Muscat and massacre all its defenders. This event took place in 1650.




18. He calls it the "Aljouvar." It is probably a corrupted Arabic word <Arabic> Al-jabr, "the prison."




19. The Straight Street, so called because almost all the streets of Goa were laid out in curvilinear form.




20. St. Catherine was appointed patron saint of Goa, because the city was taken by the Portuguese on her day.




21. Calling upon the name of the Almighty.




22. A particular class Hindoo devotee and beggar.




23. Yellow is the colour usually chosen by the Hindoo when about to "do some desperate deed."




24. A "forester," and generally a regular sylvan or savage man.




25. This is said particularly of the Eastern Christian, whose terror of the tomb is most remarkable.




26. For a detailed list and description of the buildings, we must refer readers to the work of Monsieur de Kleguen, alluded to in the third chapter.




27. The large flowered jessamine.




28. The Datura stramonium, a powerful narcotic.




29. The European Portuguese can fight bravely enough, as many a bloody field in the Peninsular war has testified. Their Indian descendants, however, have never distinguished themselves for that quality.




30. Formerly, only the Reinols, as the Portuguese who came directly from Europe were called, could be viceroys, governors of Ceylon, archbishops, or grand inquisitors of Goa. Tavernier tells us that all the adventurers who passed the Cape of Good Hope forthwith became fidalgos, or gentlemen, and consequently assumed the title of Don.




31. As that "greatest hero of Portuguese Asia" governed for the short space of six years a country of which he and all around him were utterly ignorant, his fatal measure must have been suggested entirely by theory.




32. If our rulers only knew what the natives of Central Asia generally think of a "clean shaved" face, the growth of the mustachio would soon be the subject of a general order. We doubt much if any shaven race could possibly hold Afghanistan. In Western Arabia the Turks were more hated for shaving the beard than for all their flogging and impaling.




33. Compared with those of British India, probably there are not three fortunes of 500l. per annum amongst the half million of souls that own the rule of the successor of the viceroys. A large family can live most comfortably upon one-fifth of that sum.




34. Red and white wine: the latter is the favourite.




35. The Hindostanee name for the cannudo.




36. Goez, who travelled in India about 1650, says that he was surprised to see the image of a black saint on the altars, and to hear that a black native was not thought worthy to be a "religious" in this life, though liable to be canonized when he departs it.




37. Bernier, the traveller, in 1655 remarks, that "Bengala is the place for good comfits, especially in those places where the Portuguese are, who are dexterous in making them, and drive a great trade with them." In this one point their descendants have not degenerated.




38. Many tribes, however, are found among them. Some have African features.




39. Without the cholee or bodice worn by Hindoo and Moslem women in India.




40.
Leavened bread is much better made here than in any other part of Western India; moreover, it is eaten by all those who can afford it.




41.
Anciently, neither Moslem nor Jew could, under pain of death, publicly perform the rites of his religion in any Indo-Portuguese settlement.




42.
At the same tie we were not allowed to pass the threshold of the little pagoda to the southward of the town.




43.
Tavernier says of them, "the natives of the country called Canarins are not permitted to bear any office but only reference to the law, i.e., as solicitors, advocates, and scriveners. If a Canarin happened to strike a European, his hand was amputated."




44. A carpenter, one of the lowest castes amongst Hindoos.




45.
The Hindoo goddess of plenty and prosperity.




46. Opposite to the Desha, the pure dialect of Maharatta. They are about as different as English spoken in the south of England and Lowland Scotch.





47.
A celebrated Arabic author on the interpretation of dreams.




48.
Magical formula and works on "Gramarye," generally in the Sanscrit, sometimes in the Pracrit, tongue.




49. As, however, the Maharatta is the mother tongue of the Goanese, it communicates its peculiar twang to every other language they speak. The difference of their Portuguese from the pure Lusitanian, is at once perceptible to a practised ear.




50. And yet as late as 1840, the Government of Goa was obliged to issue an order confiscating the property of all priests who should submit to the Vicar-apostolic appointed by the Pope.




51. Francklin, who visited Goa in 1786, says that the army was about five thousand men, two regiments of which were Europeans. Even in his day the Home Government was obliged to send large sums of money annually to defray the expenses of their Indian possessions.




52. A colonel receiving about 15l., an ensign, 3l. per mensem.




53. The translator of Ibn Batuta's Travels.




54. Ferdinand, the second Duke of Tuscany, was the munificent patron of the father of Western Orientalism.




55. When Vasco de Gama returned to India, part of his freight was "eight Franciscan friars, eight chaplains, and one chaplain major, who were instructed to begin by preaching, and, if that failed, to proceed to the decision of the sword."




56. The curious reader will find the subject of Jesuitical conversion in India most ably treated in Sir J. E. Tennent's late work on "Christianity in Ceylon."




57. A common term of insult.




58. The mountains distinctly visible from the sea off Calicut, in clear weather, are the Koondah range of the Neilgherries, or Blue Hills.




59. "Noble and wealthy city."




60. The later is A.D. 907.




61. In 1788, Tipoo was induced by ill-timed zeal or mistaken policy to order the circumcision and conversion of the Malabar Hindoos, and compelled the Brahmans to eat beef, as an example to the other inferior castes. A general insurrection of the oppressed was the natural consequence of the oppressive measure.

Tradition asserts that there was a forcible but partial circumcision of the natives of Malabar by the people of Arabia long before Hyder's time. So the grievance was by no means a new one.




62. Who, it may be observed, are the navigators and traders par excellence of the Eastern world. The Jews and Phoenicians generally contined themselves to the Mediterranean and the parts about the Red Sea. The Turks were an inland nation; the Hindoos have ever been averse to any but coasting voyages, and the religion of Zoroaster forbade its followers to cross the seas. But the "Arab is still what he was--the facile princips of Oriental sailors.

As a proof of how strong the followers of Mohammed mustered on the Malabar coast, we may quote Barthema, who asserts, that when the Portuguese landed at Calicut, they found not less than fifteen thousand of them settled there. Camoens also tells us how the friendly and disinterested plans of his hero were obstructed and thwarted by the power and influence of these infidel Moors.




63. Between September 1846 and May 1847, no less than eighty ships, besides an immense number of pattimars and native craft touched at Calicut.




64. Arab and other valuable horses cannot stand the climate,--a Pegu pony is the general monture. The sheep intended for consumption are brought down from Msore.




65. Subterraneous streams are still as common in India as they were in heathen Greece and Italy.




66. The dynastical name of the Samiry.




67. Captain Hamilton mentions his ship striking in six fathoms at the mainmast on some of the ruins of "the sunken town built by the Portuguese in former times." But he hesitates to determine whether the place was "swallowed up by an earthquake, as some affirm, or undermined by the sea."




68. A further account of Cherooman will be found in the twelfth chapter. Ferishteh, the celebrated Moslem annalist, informs us that the Rajah became a Mussulman in consequence of the pious exhortations of some Arab sailors who were driven into the port of Craganore. Captain Hamilton remarks that, "when the Portuguese first came to India, the Samorin of Calicut, who was lord paramount of Malabar, turned Moslem in his dotage, and to show his zeal, went to Mecca on a pilgrimage, and died on the voyage." The tradition handed down amongst the Moslems is, that the Malabar Rajah became a convert to Islam in consequence of seeing the Shakk el-Kamar, or miraculous splitting of the moon by Mohammed, and that, warned by a dream, he passed over to Arabia.




69. See Chapter XII.




70. Surya, the Hindoo Phoebus.




71. Go-karna, the "Cow's-ear," a celebrated place of pilgrimage in the Canara district.




72. Cherun or Chairun was one of the three kingdoms contained in South India; the other two were Sholum (Tanjore) and Pundium (Madura).




73. We know not which to admire or to pity the more: this wonderful old traveller's accuracy and truthfulness, or the hard fate which gave him the nickname of Meaaer Marco Milieni. Tardy justice, however, has been done to his memory, and a learned Italian Orientalist, M. Romagnosi, now asserts, that from his adventurous wanderings "seaturirono tutte le speculazioni e teorie che condussero finalmente alla scoperta del Nuovo Mondo."




74. Paolino observes, that the term Malabar ought not to be deduced from the Arabic mala, a mountain, and bahr, a coast. And Paolino is right; neither of those vocables are Arabic at all. The word is of Sanscrit origin, derived from malya (<Sanskrit>
mLy a mountain generally, but particularly the ranges called by us the Western Ghauts), and var (<Sanskrit>var, a multitude). The Persian word <Persian> (bar), used in compounds, as Zang-bar, the region of blacks, or Zanguebar, is palpably a corruption of the said var. Thus the original Sanscrit term malya-desha, the mountain land, became in Persian and Arabic Malbar, or Malibar, and hence our Malabar. A late editor of Marco Polo's travels might have been more cautious than to assert that "the very term is Arabic."




75. Anciently described to be pepper, ivory, timber, and pearls. The three former articles are still produced in great abundance.

We may here notice that Vincent translates <Greek> , "sandalwood," and supposes the word to have been originally written <Greek>. He is wrong: the tectona grandis, or teak, called throughout Western India sag (<Greek>), or sagcan, is alluded to. So also <Greek> is rendered "ebony in large sticks," and in a note we are informed that it is a corrupt reading, that wood of some sort is meant, but that sesamum is a herb. The <Greek> of the Greeks is manifestly the Indian sisam, or black tree.




76. It is variously and incorrectly written Dely, Delly, D'illi, and Dilla. The mountain derives its present name from a celebrated Moslem fakir, Mohommed of Delhi, who died there, and is invoked by the sea-faring people of the coast. Its Hindo appellation is Yeymullay. No stress therefore should be laid upon the resemblance between Mount Delhi and the Ela Barake of the Periplus. The identity of the two places rests, however, on good local evidence.




77. Varying from eighty to one hundred and thirty-five inches per annum.




78. Unhappily the banyan has been selected, a tree which, though sufficiently shady when its root-like branches are allowed to reach the ground, is comparatively valueless as a protection against the sun, when planted by a roadside. Also, it is easily overthrown by high winds, for, after a time, the long and tenacious roots that uphold it rot off, and the thin branches of young shoots that cling round the parent stem have not the power to support its weight. A third disadvantage in the banyan is, that in many places the boughs grow low, and a horseman's head is in perpetual danger.




79. The usual ferry-boat is a platform of planks lashed to two canoes, and generally railed round. We know not a more disagreeable predicament than half an hour's trip upon one of these vessels, with a couple of biting and kicking nags on board.




80. The botanical name of this tree is derived from the Malayalim adeka, a betel nut. The English "jackfruit" is the Portuguese "jacka," a corruption of the native name chukka.




81. Of the Malayalim aera. It is called Kolum, from a village of that name, and dates its beginning in A.D. 824, the time when a rich Nair merchant adorned the place with a splendid palace and tank. Previous to its establishment, the natives used a cycle of twelve years, each called after some zodiacal sign. The months were also denoted by the same terms, so that the name of the year and the month were periodically identical.




82. Equal to Cos. Rs. 250, about 25l.




83. See Chapter XII.




84. Tumbooran, in Malayalim, means a lord or prince. If a minor he is termed Tumban.




85. Most of the matter contained in this chapter has been taken from old and valuable papers preserved in the Nuzoor Cutcherry at Calicut. By the kindness of the collector we were permitted to inspect and make any extracts from them we pleased.




86. The reader must bear in mind that in Malabar, as in all other native states, contributions carefully proportioned to the circumstances of the parties so mulcted, were called for on every occasion of emergency.




87. In three vols. Printed at the Courier press, Bombay.




88. Tradition obscurely alludes to a Rajah called Kerulam (probably from his kingdom), who reigned sixty-three years after Parasu Rama.




89. In Sanscrit the word means a continent, country, or region: it is used hereabouts in a limited sense, generally signifying a village.




90. The Hindoo law lays down five per cent. as the amount to be levied from the plaintiff, ten from the defendant if cast in a suit, otherwise he is exempt from any tax. Some of the Rajahs were by no means content with such a moderate perquisite; the ruler of Cochin, for instance, never took less than double the sum above specified.




91. Sometimes called Prumani and Mookoodee, "principal inhabitants."




92. "Ruler of the land of Cherun." See Chapter XI.




93. The current aera of the Hindoos.




94. See Chapter X.




95. In the present talook of Temelpooram.




96. Captain Hamilton--no great authority by the bye in such matters--relates that the Samiry divided his territories between his four nephews, and says that the partition led to long and bloody wars between the brothers. He probably confounded a Moslem with the Hindoo tradition.




97. Tumbooratee, in Malayalim, a lady or princess; if a minor she is termed Tumbatee.




98. The above four are the only recognised palaces.




99. Some of the present chieftains of Malabar style themselves Kshatriyas, but by far the greater number derive their pedigree from the intercourse of Brahmans with the royal ladies, who principally belong to the Nair cast of Hindoos.




100. This gives upwards of two hundred souls per mile, estimating the extend of Malabar at about six thousand square miles.




101. It ordained, for instance, that corpses shall be burned within private premises, instead of being carried out for that purpose into the woods, &c.




102. There is an abridged form of this salutation, which consists of joining the hands and then parting them, at the same time bending the fingers at the second joint.




103. This word generally follows the name of the individual, and seems to be the titular appellation of the class. It is probably derived from the Sanscrit Nayaka (a chief), like the Teloogoo Naidoo, the Canarese and Tamul Naikum, and the Hindoo Naik.




104. Captain Hamilton makes the number of fighting men throughout the province, of course including all castes, amount to one million two hundred and sixty-two thousand.




105. Opposed to muka-tayum, the succession of sons.




106. The head of the house.




107. The masculine singular of this word is Tian (fem. Tiatti), in the plural Tiyar.




108. The Moplahs, as strangers, and the merchants, trades-people, and professional men who had no fixed places of residence, did not engage in this feudal relationship.




109. See Chapter XI.




110. The word Udian, in Malayalim and Tamul, literally signifies a slave. Here it is used in its limited signification of vassal or client, as opposed to the Tumbooran or patron. The word, however, would be considered degrading to a Nair, and is therefore never applied to him.




111. "Sons of the soil," from cher, earth, and mukkul, children. In the masculine singular the word is chermun (fem. chermee), plural, chermur.




112. The price of a slave varied from 3l to 8l.




113. In the Calicut district, half the children belonged to the mother, or rather to her proprietor, and the other half to the father's master; the odd number was the property of the former. When both parents belonged to one owner, he of course claimed all the offspring.




114. Generally speaking, the slaves in the maritime districts were in better condition, and far superior in bodily and mental development to their brethren in the interior.




115. There are three different derivations of this word. Some deduce it from the pure Hindostani and corrupted Sanscrit word ma (a mother), and the Tamul pilla (a son), "sons of their mothers," the male progenitor being unknown. Others suppose it to be a compound of mukkul (a daughter) and pilla (a son), "a daughter's son," also an allusion to their origin. The third is a rather fanciful derivation from Mokhai-pilla "sons of, or emigrants from, Mocha," in Arabia.




116. This description applies exclusively to the higher orders; the labouring classes are dark and ill-favoured.




117. The genuine Arab, especially in Yemen and Tehamah, is, generally speaking, a Kusaj, or scant-bearded man; and his envy regarding the flowing honours of a Persian chin, is only equalled by the lasting regret with which he laments his own deficiency in that semi-religious appurtenance to the human face.




118. The practice of the Prophet, whom every good Moslem is bound to imitate, even in the most trivial and every-day occasions.




119. The Æschynomene paludosa, a wood of porous texture, which swells when water is poured upon it. Lead is sometimes used to distend the flap of the ear by its weight.




120. A name, by no means complimentary, applied to all who are not Moslems.




121. The descendants of the Wild Man have at all times been celebrated for obstinate individual valour, and enduring an amount of "punishment" which seems quite incredible.




122. Manned in those days by Hindoos. Marco Polo tells us that the people of Malabar are idolaters, and subject to no foreigner.




123. Who retorted by hanging them upon the spot, or throwing them overboard. This style of warfare was productive of great barbarities. There is a pile of stone rising above the sea, about seven leagues north-west of Calicut, called the Sacrifice Rock, from the slaughter of the crew of a Portuguese vessel which was captured by the "Cottica cruisers shortly after the settlement of the Christians in India.




124. The sum usually paid was from eight to ten shillings, a portion of which went to the Rajah, part to the women who had lost their husbands in these predatory encounters, and the remainder was "prize-money."




125. Few would be disposed to consider the salt-duty a practical proof of the enlightened nature of our rule in the East, and there is no one, we believe, except a "crack collector," who would not rejoice to see it done away with, or at least much reduced.




126. The rajah was expected to grant lands to the families of those who heroically bound themselves by solemn vow to fight till death against the enemy. If the self-devoted escaped destruction, he became an outcaste, ans was compelled to leave the country.




127. This is the universal belief and practice of the more bigoted parts of the Moslem world, and so deep-rooted is the feeling, that it acquires a degree of power and influence truly formidable, and difficult to deal with.




128. The natives of India generally belong to the Hanafi: the Arabs are the principal followers of the Shafei sect. Both are Sunnis, or orthodox Moslems, and there is little difference between them, except in such trifling points as the eating or rejecting fish without scales, &c.




129. Except that a Moslem father may always allot a portion of property during his lifetime to his children.




130. Usually they prefer the occupation of carrying the palanquin to any other bodily labour.




131. Intermarriage, however, is not permitted.




132. The races above described are those settled in the country. The fluctuating portion of the community is composed of the Europeans, the soldiery and camp followers, Arabs and foreign Mussulmans, Banyans from Guzerat, a few Parsees, and some boat loads of the half-starved wretches that leave the Maldives and Laccadives in search of employment during the cold season.




133. The Koondah road is about seventy, that viâ Poonanee, one hundred and sixty miles in length.




134. The pages of the Madras directories and road-books give ample accounts of all the chief routes in the presidency.




135. Judging from the name, a stranger would suppose that the place was called after some neighbouring Ghaut, or pass, in the hills. The uncorrupted native appellation, however, is Palakad, from Kadu, a jungle, and Pala, a tree used in dyeing.




136. For a detailed description of the sieges and captures of Paulghaut, we beg to refer to a work entitled, "Historical Record of the H. E. I. Company's First European Regiment; Madras. By a Staff Officer."




137. Anciently an excellent forest. The trees were felled, hewn into rough planks, and floated down the Poonanee river at very little expense. This valuable article has, however, been sadly mismanaged by us in more ways than one. All the timber growing near the streams has been cleared away, and as the local government will not lay out a few lacs of rupees in cutting roads through the forests, its expense has been raised almost beyond its value. Considerable losses in the dockyards have been incurred in consequence of the old erroneous belief that "teak is the only wood in India which the white ants will not touch." The timber should be stacked for at least eight years, three of which would enable it to dry, and the remaining five to become properly seasoned.




138. The common country carts, called garees in other parts of India. Here they are covered with matting, for the same reason that compels the people to thatch their heads.




139. In Malabar the horse is perhaps as great an object of horror as the rider, the natives are so little accustomed to see such quadrupeds.




140. The pet name for the Madras Presidency.




141. It is curious to see the different way in which the kotwals, peons, and other such official characters behave towards the Bombay and Madras traveller. The latter escapes their importunity, whereas the former, by keeping up his presidency's bad practice of feeing government servants, teaches them incivility to all who either refuse or neglect to pay this kind of "black mail."




142. Etymologists write the word "Hullicul," deriving it from cul, a rock, and hulli, a tiger, as formerly a stone figure of one of those animals that had been slain by a chief single-handed, stood thereabouts. There are several forts in other parts of the hills similar to Oolacul Droog; some suppose them to have been built by Hyder Ali, others assign an earlier date to them.




143. See Chapter XIX. for a further account of the work.




144. The "blue hill;" it lies near the Danaynkeuchottah Pass, one of the first ascended by Europeans. The visitors would naturally ask the natives what name they gave to the spot, and when answered nilagiri, would apply the word to the whole range. The sacred mount is still a place of pilgrimage, although its pagoda has long been in ruins.




145. The Eastern Ghauts begin south of the Cavery river, and extend almost in a straightline to the banks of the Krishna. The western range commences near Cape Comorin, and after running along the western coast as far north as Surat, diverges towards the north-east, and is lost in the valley of the Tapti.




146. The Pykarry becomes the Moyar river, and under that name flows round the north and north-west base of the hills; it falls into the Bhawany, which bounds the south and east slopes, and acts as the common drain of every little brook and torrent in the Neilgherries.




147. Its extent is about twenty miles from east to west, and seven from north to south.




148. The Seegoor Ghaut, which was almost impassable in Captain Harknes and Dr. Baikie's time, is not one of the easiest and best ascents.




149. See Chapter XVIII.




150. Dodabetta, or the "Great Mountain," called by the Todas, Pet-, or Het-marz. The summit is eight thousand seven hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, and forms the apex of the Neilgherry range. The vicinity of the giant has its advantages and disadvantages. It is certainly a beautiful place for pic-nics, and the view from the observatory on the top is grand and extensive. But as a counterpoise, the lofty peak attracting and detaining every cloud that rolls up from the coast during the rainy season, makes one wish most fervently that the Great Mountain were anywhere but in its present position.




151. Ootacamund, Wootaycamund, or Wotay. "Mund" means a village in the language of the hill people. ootac is a corruption of the Toda vocable Hootkh, a word unpronounceable to the Indians of the plain. The original hamlet still nestles against the towering side of Dadabetta, but its pristine inhabitants, the Todas, have given it up to another race, and migrated to the wood which lies behind the public gardens.




152. It was established at Ootacamund under a warrant of constitution from the Provincial Grand Lodge on the coast of Coromandel.




153. The Bombayites had, moreover, their own medical attendant, with a hospital and the usual number of subalterns attached to it. There are now but three surgeons on the hills, attending on one hundred and four invalids, who are scattered over many miles of country.




154. The measure was advocated by Mr. Sullivan as early as 1828, but financial, not common-sensical or medical, considerations have long delayed its being carried into execution.




155. The principal schools now (1847) to be found at Ootacanmund are four in number, viz.:--

1. The Ooty free school, established for the purpose of giving education gratis to children of the poor; it is supported by voluntary contributions, and superintended by the chaplain of the station. The number of scholars on the rolls is generally about thirty.

2. Fern Hill, the Rev. Mr. Rigg's boarding-school for young gentlemen. It contains twenty-six pupils, varying in age from five to fifteen. Of these, fourteen are the sons of officiers in the service, and the rest are youths of sespectable families. Terms for boarders, 4l per munsem, the usual charges on the neilgherries.

3. An establishment for young ladies, conducted by Miss Hale and Miss Millard.

4. Ditto for young ladies and young gentlemen under ten years of age, conducted by Mrs. James and Miss. Ottley.

Besides those above mentioned, several ladies receive a limited number of pupils.

The schools for natives at Ootacmund are-

1. The Hindostani school - Conducted by the Rev. Bernard Schmidt, D.D.

2. The Tamul school - Conducted by the Rev. Bernard Schmidt, D.D.

There are many other similar establishments for native children in different parts of the hills.

So that the pedagogue has not neglected to visit this remote corner of his wide domains.




156. The Union and the Victoria. For bed and board the prices usually charged are-

For a lady or gentleman, 22l. per mens.

Ditto for any broken period in a month, 16s. per diem.

For children under ten years of age and European servants, 2s. per diem.

Native ayah or nurse, 1s. per diem.

The expense of housekeeping is not great at Ootacamund. A single man may manage to live for 20l. per mensem, comfortably for 30l. It is common for two or more bachelors to take a house together, and the plan suits the nature of the place well.

Only be careful who your monsoon "chum" is!




157. The most stringent measures have been found necessary to prevent gentlemen from committing suicide by means of elephant shooting in the pestilential jungles below the hills. Besides, there is some little duty to be done by the Madrassees on the Neilgherries: a convalescent list is daily forwarded to the Commanding officer, reporting those who are equal to such labours as committees and courts of inquest.




158. Large fans, suspended from the ceiling.




159. As the Madrassees are familiarly called. The cunning in language derive the term from mulligatawny soup, the quantity of which imbibed in South India strikes the stranger with a painful sense of novelty.




160. See Chapter XLX.




161. The region of eternal punishment.




162. "The ethics of India;" the Cornelius Nepos of Hindostani.




163. No inscriptions have as yet been discovered. The only coin we have heard of was a Roman aurens, whereas in the cairns that stud the plains, medals, of the Lower Empire especially, are commonly met with.




164. Consecrated stones.




165. The kistvaens, or closed cromlechs of the Neilgherries, are tumuli about five feet high. The internal chamber is composed of four walls, each consisting of an entire stone seven feet long and five broad, floored and roofed with similar slabs. In the monolithe, constituting the eastern wall, is a circular aperture large enough to admit the body of a child.




166. The colonists have followed the example of the aborigines. Little, however, can be said in favour of our nomenclature. There is a Snowdon, without snow; a Sabble-back Hill, whose dorsum resembles anything as much as a saddle; an Avalanche Hill, without avalanches, and so on.




167. Dr. Baikie (in 1834) mentions that one of these animals had held possession of a thick wood close to the cantonment for some years. The same spot is still tenanted, it is said, by a cheeta, but whether it be the original occupant, his ghost or one of his descendants, men know not.




168. Not Buffon's elk. It is the Cerrus Aristotelis, or black rusa of Cuvier; the "Shambara" of classical India; the Gavazn of Persia; and the Gav i Gavazn of Affghanistan and Central Asia.




169. Upon this part Nature has provided the animal with a bony mass, impenetrable to anything lighter than a grapeshot, occupying the whole space between the horns, and useful, we should suppose, in forcing a way through dense and thorny jungle.




170. This "jungle sheep" is the Cervus porcinus, the hog-deer or barking-deer of Upper India, which abounds in every shikargah of delectable Scinde. In Sanscrit it is called the Preushat ("sprinkling," in allusion to its spotted hide); in Hindostani, Parha; and in Persian, the Kotah-pacheh, or "short hoof."




171. A shola is a thick mass of low wood, which may be measured by yards or miles, clothing the sides, the bottoms, and the ravines of the hills and mountains.




172. I.e. ten or twenty dogs and curs, young and old, of high and low degree, terriers, pointers, spaniels, setters, pariahs, and mongrels, headed by a staunch old hound or two.




173. There is a large kind of solitary jackal whose cry is never answered by the other animals of the same species: the sound somewhat resembles the hyæna's laugh, and has been mistaken for it by many.




174. Gardener.




175. A species of squirrel.




176. We have heard much about the difficulty of taming these birds. Some go so far as to assert that they pine away and die when deprived of their liberty. The Affghans seem to find nothing hard in the operation, as they use the birds for fighting. They show excellent pluck, and never fail to fight till death, although steel and silver are things unknown.




177. Seven poinds for a full grown, 5l for a young animal. When the reward is claimed the tusks must be given up. Tuskers, however, are not often met with in these days.




178. Every swamp on and about the hills is full of small leeches,--the lake also abounds in them,--which assail your legs, and swarming up the trees, drop down your shirt collar to your extreme annoyance. They are quite useless for medical purposes, as the bite is highly inflammatory.




179. The Maroo Bungla, or log-house, as the natives call the Avalanche bungalow.




180. The first name is a corruption of the second, which is derived from Vadacu, "the north," these people having migrated from that direction.




181. The worship of the terrible and destructive incarnation of the Deity.




182. Signifying the "unenlightened or barbarous," from the Tamul word Erul, darkness.




183. "Cooroombar," or "Curumbar," literally means "wilfull, or self-willed." Sometimes the word mulu, a "thorn," is prefixed to the genuine name by way of epithet, alluding to the nature of the race.




184. So Captain Harkness writes the word, remarking, that "as this tribe kill and eat a great deal of beef, it was no doubt intended by their Hindu neighbours that they should be called 'Gohatars,' from go, a cow, and hata, slaying." "Cuv," in the Toda dialect, means a "mechanic."




185. Many of the words have been corrupted, and the pronunciation has become nasal, not guttural, like that of the Todas. The Kothurs can, however, express themselves imperfectly in Canarese.




186. All that we can gather from their songs and tales is, that anciently they were the zemindars, or landed proprietors of the hills.




187. Todawars, Tudas, or Toders. Captain Harkness derives the word from the Tamul, Torawar, a herdsman, and this is probably the true name of the race.




188. The north-west parts of the Persian Gulf.




189. E.g. The peaks of the Todas are venerated by the Todas, as they were by the Celto-Scythians. The single stone in the sacred lactarium of the former, was the most conspicuous instrument of superstition in the Druidical or "Scythic religion. Captain Congreve asserts that the Toda faith is Scythicism, because they sacrifice female children, bulls, calves, and buffaloes, as the Scythians did horses; that they adore the sun (what old barbarians did not?), revere fire, respect certain trees and bunches of leaves, worship the Deity in groves of the profoundest gloom, and have some knowledge of a future state. He proves that the hills are covered with vestiges of Scythicism, as cairns, barrows, and monolithic altars, and believes them to have belonged to the early Todas, inasmuch as "the religion of the Todas is Scythicism, and these are monuments of Scythicism." He concludes the exposition of his theory with the following recapitulation of his reasons for considering the Todas of Scythian descent:--1. Identity of religion (not proved). 2. Physiological position of the Todas in the great family race (we are not told how it resembles that of the Scythians). 3. The pastoral mode of life among the Todas. 4. The food of the Todas, which consisted originally of milk and butter (we "doubt the fact"). 5. Their architecture, religious, military, and domestic, the yards of the Toda houses, their temples, their sacred enclosures, their kraals for cattle, are circular, as were those of the Celts, and, indeed, of most ancient people whose divinity was Sun, Light, Fire, Apollo, Mithra, &c. 6. Their marriage customs and funeral rites are nearly identical (an assertion). 7. Their ornaments and dress closely approximate (ditto). 8. Their customs are generally similar (ditto). 9. The authority of Sir W. Jones that the ancient Scythians did people a mountainous district of India (quasi irrelevant). 10. History mentions that India has been invaded by "Scythian hordes from the remotest times (ditto). 11. Their utter separation in every respect from the races around them.




190. Such as want of weapons, difference of colour, dissimilarity of language. With respect to the latter point Captain Congreve remarks, that "a comparison with the Gothic, Celtic, and other ancient dialects of Europe is a great desideratum; but should no affinity be found to prevail, I should not consider the absence detrimental to my views, for this reason, that the people of Celto-Scythic orgion having various languages, have been widely dispersed."




191. In many parts of the Neilgherries there is a large species of solitary bee which the Todas declared incurred the displeasure of the Great Spirit by stinging him, and was therefore condemned to eternal separation from his kind. But as huge combs and excellent honey abound on these hills, their savage inhabitants of course superstitionize upon the subject of the bee. The Creator, they say, desirous of knowing how honey is made, caught the animal, and she proving obstinate and refractory, confined her by means of a string tied round the middle; hence her peculiar shape! Is not this clearly a psychological allusion to the power colition for which the fair sex is proverbially famous?




192. Not, however, by the victory of Brahmanism over Buddhism, as some have supposed. The leading tenet of Buddha's faith was the sin of shedding blood, whereas the Todas practise infanticide and eat meat. Moreover, there is a bond of union between them and those Anti-Buddhists the Lingaits, who adhere to the religion of Shiva pure and undefiled.

This Buddhistic theory rests upon the slender foundation that the Todas call Wednesday, Buddhi-aum (Buddh's day). But the celebrated Eastern reformer's name has extended as far as the good old island in the West. It became Fo-e and Xa-ca (Shakya) in China; But in Coehin-China, Pout in Siam; Pott or Poti, in Thibet; perhaps the Wadd of Pagan Arabia; Toth in Egypt; Woden in Scandinavia; and thus reaching our remote shores, left its traces in "Wednesday." So say the etymologists.




193. By the Rev. Mr. Schmidt's vocabulary of the Toda tongue.




194. Captain Harkness is egregiously mistaken when he asserts that the dialect of his aborigines "has not the least affinity in roots, construction, or sound, with the Sanscrit."




195. In some points. Thus we find the Ain, Ghain, Fa and Kha of the Arabs, together with the Zha of the Persians. But the step from the Indian <Sanskrit letter >
Ü to the Arabic <Arabic letter> , from <Sanskrit letter gh> 3 (g'h) to <Arabic letter> and from from <Sanskrit letter ph> f (p'h) to <Arabic letter> , is easily made; and the kha and zha belong to some Indian dialects as well as to Arabic and Persian.

It is supposed that the Toda language is still divided, like the Tamul, into two distinct dialects, one the popular, the other the sacred; the former admitting foreign words, derived from the Canarese, the latter a pure form generally used by the priesthood.

Most Todas can speak a few words of Corrupted Canarese.




196. A share of the land-produce varying from one-third to one-sixth of the whole, settled by the eye, and generally paid in kind. The Toda has made himself necessary to the Berger; he must sow the first handful of grain, and reap the first fruits of the harvest, otherwise the land would be allowed to lie fallow, and the crop to rot upon the ground.




197. The polyandry practised of yore seems at present on the decline. Infanticide, though said to have been abolished, probably holds its ground in the remote parts of the hills. Near the stations the lives of female children are spared with the view of making money by their immorality. Old women are still by no means common.




198. For a more detailed account of them, we refer the reader to the amusing pages of Captain Harkness.




199.
A brother mason informs us, that "the Todas use a sign of recognition similar to ours, and they have discovered that Europeans have an institution corresponding with their own." Hence, he remarks, "a Toda initiated will bow to a gentleman, never to a lady."

But in our humble opinion, next to the Antiquary in simplicity of mind, capacity of belief, and capability of assertion, ranks the Freemason.




200. What follows alludes particularly to the Todas living in the vicinity of Ooty, Coonoor, and Kotagherry.





201.
The habit of intoxication is now so fatally common amongst the rising generation, that their fathers will not, it is said, initiate them into their mysteries, for fear that the secret should be divulged over the cup.




202. The faculty unanimously assert that the air of the hills is not prejudicial to those suffering from ophthalmic disease. We observed, however, that a large proportion of invalids complained of sore eyes and weakness of sight, produced, probably, by the glare of the fine season and the piercing winds of the monsoon.




203. The "hill of the Kothrus."




204. The termination "hutty," so common in the names of the hill villages, is used to denote a Berger settlement, as "mund" means a Toda hamlet.




205. Or tuft: it is so called from a clump of trees which crowns the ridge of a high hill.




206. The Neilgherries are exposed to the violence of both monsoons, the south-west and the north-east. The fall of rain during the latter is, however, comparatively trifling.




207. It commences with a résumé of the peculiarities of the hills, and accounts of the three great stations; proceeds to a description of the geography and geology, soil and productions, botany, zoology, and the inhabitants of the Neilgherries, and discusses at some length the effects of the climate upon the European constitution, sound as well as impaired. The Appendix presents a mass of information valuable enough when the work was published, but now, with the exception of the meteorological and other tables, too old to be useful. thirteen or fourteen years work mighty changes, moral and physical, in an Anglo-Indian settlement.




208. The book contains one hundred and forty-four pages, enlivened with a dozen lithographed sketches, and not enlivened by descriptions of Poonamalee, Vellore, Laulpett, Bangalore, and Closepett.




209. A little volume of one hundred and seventy-five pages, containing graphic sketches of the scenery, excellent accounts of the different tribes of hill people, a weather-table from July to December, 1829, the height of the principal mountains, and a short and meagre vocabulary of the Toda language.