The temples of Mahabaleshwur possess extensive landed property, some of it on the slopes overhanging the Parr valley. It is in charge of an hereditary Enamdar, who lives in the Deccan, and visits the temples once a year. He keeps them in tolerable repair, and pockets the surplus of their revenues. From the village there is an extensive view of the deep valley of the Krishna and Yena, to the eastward, which slopes down abruptly from the hill on which Mahabaleshwur is built.
As in Coorg there is a curious legend respecting the origin of the Cauvery, so in the Mahabaleshwur hills an equally wild story is attached to the source of the Krishna. It is said that two giants, called Mahaballee and Anteeballee, made war upon the Brahmins, until they were destroyed by Siva. Before they died they asked a favour, which was granted, namely, that they and their followers might be turned into rivers. This is the fabulous origin of five rivers:—the Krishna, named in honour of one of Vishnu's avaturs; the Koina and the Yena, flowing to the Deccan; and the rivers Sawitri and Gawitri, finding their way through gorges to the westward, and becoming tributaries of the Bancoot river in the Concan. The Krishna is looked upon as a personation of the God Krishna in a female form, and is often called baee or lady Krishna. This important stream, issuing from the cow's mouth at Mahabaleshwur, flows down a gorge bounded by steep barren hills, terminating in rocky cliffs. We could see the river, like a silver thread, meandering through some cultivated land far below; but the general aspect of the country was barren and cheerless. During the monsoon it is doubtless quite green.
The Mahabaleshwur hills average an elevation of 4500 feet above the sea. They are composed almost entirely of laterite,[482] overlying eruptive rocks, such as basalt, greenstone, and amygdaloid; and the soil is a clay resulting from the disintegration of the laterite.
On these hills October is the commencement of the dry season, but during that month the amount of aqueous vapour in the atmosphere is still considerable, while the temperature is cool and equable. From November the air becomes gradually drier until the end of February; the weather is dry and cold, and a sharp dry easterly wind usually prevails. The mean temperature of this season is 64°, with a daily variation of about 12°. Fogs and mists commence in March, and gradually increase until the rain begins in the end of May. The hottest month is April. From the end of May to September there is almost incessant rain, and the hills are constantly enveloped in clouds and fog. The mean temperature of the rainy season is 64.5°, but the daily variation is only 3°. The average rainfall is 227 inches, of which nearly one-third comes down in August.[483] (See Table, next page.)
The vegetation of these hills, as might be expected from the essential difference in the climate, is quite distinct from that of the Neilgherries. There is a great want of forest-trees in the jungles, and the trees and bushes are, as a rule, poor and stunted. The hills are covered with grass and ferns, and are dotted over with a shrub called by the natives rumeta. It is the Lasiosiphon speciosus,[484] with flowers something like small Guelder roses, clustered in terminal umbels. The Randia dumetorum, a thorny bush, is also common. In the thickets I observed a Memecylon, called by the natives anjun, a melastomaceous tree, with beautiful purple flowers;[485] a small Crotalaria, with a bright yellow flower; a Jasminum; an Indigofera; the Eugenia Jambolanum; the pretty creeping Clematis Wightiana; some willows near streams; a Solanum; and the Curcuma caulina, a kind of arrowroot, with enormous leaves, sometimes tinged with red,[486] in flower during the rains.[487]
| MAHABALESHWUR HILLS. | ||||||||
| Month. | Mean Temperature. | Mean Maximum. | Mean Minimum. | Extreme Maximum. | Extreme Minimum. | Mean daily Variation. | Rainfall in inches. | Wind. |
| Jan. | 63 | 70 | 56 | 75 | 45 | 14 | None. | N.E. |
| Feb. | 64 | 72 | 57 | 78 | 46 | 14 | 0.3 | N.N.W. |
| March | 71 | 79 | 65 | 87 | 57 | 13 | 0.07 | Do. |
| April | 74 | 81 | 67 | 90 | 56 | 13 | 1.3 | N.W. |
| May | 71 | 78 | 66 | 88 | 57 | 12 | 1.45 | Westerly. |
| June | 67 | 70 | 63 | 82 | 62 | 6 | 47.9 | W.S.W. |
| July | 63 | 64 | 62 | 73 | 62 | 1 | 67.4 | Do. |
| Aug. | 63 | 65 | 63 | 70 | 61 | 2 | 81.8 | Do. |
| Sept. | 64 | 66 | 62 | 73 | 56 | 3 | 30.6 | Do. |
| Oct. | 65 | 70 | 61 | 73 | 54 | 8 | 5.5 | Easterly. |
| Nov. | 64 | 70 | 58 | 72 | 51 | 11 | 2.9 | Do. |
| Dec. | 63 | 68 | 58 | 73 | 49 | 10 | 0.2 | Do. |
I reluctantly came to the conclusion that the Mahabaleshwur hills were not well suited for the growth of chinchona-plants. The intense dryness of the atmosphere during the greater part of the year, the poor character of the vegetation, and even the enormous rainfall during the summer months, which more resembles the climatic conditions of the forests of Canelos to the eastward, than the region of "red-bark" trees to the westward of Chimborazo, all pointed to this conclusion. Nevertheless some seeds of chinchona-plants were forwarded to Mr. Dalzell, the Conservator of forests in the Bombay Presidency, which are said to have come up well at Mahabaleshwur. If these plants should really thrive it will prove that they are capable of adapting themselves to differences of climate to an extent of which we previously had no idea. I sincerely trust that this may be the case, and that some at least of the species of Chinchonæ now in India may be successfully introduced into the Mahabaleshwur hills. Mr. Dalzell informs me that there are high hills to the eastward of the Portuguese settlement of Goa, but not so elevated as Mahabaleshwur, where he thinks that some of the Chinchonæ, which flourish at low elevations, might be acclimatized. He had observed that, in the Bombay Presidency, a difference of 150 to 200 miles southing is equivalent to a certain elevation, that is, that plants confined to the highest ground in lat. 18° are found at a much lower level in lat. 15°; and that members of the family of Chinchonaceæ increase in the number of genera and species as we travel south from Mahabaleshwur, along the summit of the range, to lat. 15°.
The road down into the Deccan, from Malcolm-penth, leads to the eastward over hills bare of jungle, and sprinkled over with a scanty growth of Lasiosiphons and ferns. After six miles it begins to pass along a ridge or saddle, with the deep valley of the Krishna on one side, and that of the Yena on the other. The hills which bound these valleys are very precipitous, and, at this season, look grey and barren, with ridges of rock cropping out, entirely destitute of all vegetation. The valleys and lower slopes of the hills are covered with fields of grain, now in stubble, but which must look bright and green during the rainy season.
At a distance of ten miles from Malcolm-penth, on a slope overlooking the Krishna valley, there are some small experimental farms, belonging to apothecaries in Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy's hospital at Bombay, at a place called Paunchgunny. An application was made for some chinchona-plants, to be raised at Paunchgunny; no doubt all possible care and attention would have been bestowed upon them; and I, therefore, regret that it should be a locality where they are not at all likely to flourish. Here the road descends the Tai ghaut into the Deccan, and in a couple of hours we reached the bungalow on the banks of the river Krishna, opposite the town of Waee.