BESSELY GHAUT.
The precipitous pathways which frequently occur in the Indian Apennines, a chain of mountains extending along the western or Malabar coasts of the peninsula, are called ghauts; and of these abrupt and perpendicular precipices, Bessely ghaut is considered as the most romantic. It is admirably described in the travels of Lord Valentia, from which the following particulars are extracted.
On entering the defiles of the chain of mountains by which the table-land of Mysore is separated from the low country of Canara and Malabar, the scenery becomes extremely wild and romantic. Having reached Purneah Chuttoor, situated on the summit of this celebrated ghaut, his lordship began his descent at three in the morning, by a road formed with great labor out of a bed of loose rock, over which the torrents of the preceding winter had run with such force, as to wash away all the softer parts, and in several places to leave single rocks, of four or five feet diameter, standing in the center of the road, and not more than two feet asunder. He alighted from his palanquin to admire the sublimity of the scene, and entered a forest of the largest oriental trees, several of which were one hundred feet in the stem before a single branch extended itself; notwithstanding which, the descent was so steep, that he was frequently on a level with their tops, at so small a distance as to be able to distinguish them, by the gleam of the numerous torches by which his party was accompanied, but which were insufficient to enlighten the impenetrable canopy of foliage which for miles concealed the face of heaven, or the deep gloom of the abyss into which he appeared to descend. In the day-time the scene could not have been half so awful or magnificent. The descent was impeded by numerous droves of oxen which were ascending the ghaut. At break of day an opening, in a winding part of the road, displayed the lofty mountain the party had descended, covered with forests nearly to its summit. They passed several rivulets, which at one spot had united, and formed a small stream. The surrounding vegetation was richly variegated; and the branches of the loftiest trees covered by plants of the parasitical tribe. The inhabitants of a small village, in the center of this immense forest, were employed in thrashing their grain in a truly patriarchal manner: on a floor of hard earth the grain was trodden out by oxen, which, agreeably to the Mosaical law, were unmuzzled.