We set out from Wundoor at daybreak, and passed a house just outside the village, where, a few days before, a tiger had carried off a child before the eyes of its parents. Next day the brute had the temerity to come again and try to force open the door, when a man shot it from the window. For some hours we rode through a country where the jungle alternated with cultivation in open glades, which in their natural state are covered with Pandanus, but the people here, as in other parts of Malabar, are fast encroaching on the forest, and converting these glades into paddy-fields. As we approached the foot of the mountains cultivation at last entirely ceased, and the road led through a dense forest of enormous bamboos, teak-trees with their large coarse leaves, black-wood, and other fine timber. At noon we reached the post-house of Sholacul, at the foot of the Sispara ghaut, which leads up to the summit of the Koondahs, a western continuation of the Neilgherries.
The building at Sholacul was surrounded by a very stout pallisade, to protect it from the wild elephants, who strongly object to all encroachments on their domain; and even take the trouble of pulling up the wooden milestones by the side of the roads. We found all the roads which we travelled over in Malabar excellent, and the ascent of the Sispara ghaut, though only a zigzag bridle-path, is in very good order. After leaving Sholacul the road first passes through a region of gigantic reeds, and then through a belt of black-wood, palms, and tree-ferns, with an undergrowth of Curcumas, ferns, and a brilliant purple flower (Torenia Asiatica). The black or rose-wood tree (Dalbergia latifolia) grows to a height of about fifty feet, with handsome spreading branches, and pinnate leaves. The timber is very valuable; it is extensively used in Bombay for making beautiful carved furniture, and planks are sometimes obtained four feet broad, after the sap-wood has been removed. In consequence of the increasing price, Dr. Cleghorn, the able and energetic Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency, has caused a number of seedlings to be planted at Nellamboor; and plantations have also been formed in N. Canara and Mysore.
The occasional openings in the forests, at turns in the road, afforded us views of the mountains below us covered with the richest vegetation, and of the rice-fields of Malabar stretching away to the faintly indicated blending of sea and haze on the horizon; which almost equalled in beauty the finest parts of the eastern Andes. From about 1000 to 5000 feet above the sea the jungle is covered with innumerable leeches, which eagerly fasten on their prey, whether men, horses, or dogs, and make a journey through this region, in the wet season, exceedingly disagreeable. Within this leech-zone there is a considerable clearing called Walla-ghaut, planted with coffee, which is in a ruinous and abandoned state, chiefly owing to the difficulty of inducing labourers to venture among the leeches. As we continued the ascent, the scenery increased in magnificence, the views became more extensive, and there were mountain-tops crowned with glorious forest trees far below us. At 6000 feet mosses appear, then lilies, brambles, and wild strawberries, and occasionally we crossed noisy little streams overshadowed by the trees. We reached the Sispara bungalow, on the summit of the ghaut, 6742 feet above the level of the sea, late in the afternoon.
The Sispara ghaut takes the traveller from the tropical plains to the temperate climate of the hills, where the face of nature is entirely changed. Here the hills are covered with grass, and the ravines only are filled with trees, forming thickets called sholas. In the rear of the bungalow there is an almost unrivalled view of the Malabar plains, from the edge of a precipice. The Koondah hills sweep round until they join the Wynaads, half encircling the Nellamboor valley, which was thousands of feet below us, and is covered with forest, intersected in all directions by open glades of a rich light green. The Koondahs rise up from Malabar like perpendicular walls, so steep that even a cat could not scale them in any part, for a distance of forty miles; and the grandeur of the view from this point, with these sublime cliffs, and the vast expanse of forest-covered plain below, is very striking.
At daylight next morning we left the Sispara bungalow, and rode for several miles through a valley interspersed with sholas of rhododendron-trees. Eighteen miles from Sispara is the Avalanche bungalow, 6720 feet above the sea, whence there is a good carriage-road to Ootacamund, the chief European station on the Neilgherry hills. At Avalanche the Koondah range is considered to cease, and the Neilgherry hills to commence, but the nature of the country is the same. Between Avalanche and Ootacamund, a distance of 15 miles, the country consists of grassy undulating rounded hills, divided from each other by wooded sholas. Herds of fine buffaloes were grazing by the roadside, and here and there we saw patches of millet (Setaria Italica) near the huts of the natives of these hills. As we rode round the artificial lake, and, passing several pretty little houses surrounded by shrubberies, stopped at the door of Dawson's hotel at Ootacamund, it was difficult to persuade ourselves that we were not again in England. The garden in front of the house was stocked with mignonette, wallflowers, and fuchsias, but the immense bushes of heliotrope covered with flowers, ten feet high and at least twenty in circumference, could not have attained such dimensions in an English climate. Ootacamund is nearly in the centre of the table-land of the Neilgherries, at the foot of the western face of the peak of Dodabetta, and, except to the N.W., the station is completely surrounded by grass-covered hills. Houses are scattered about under the shelter of the hills, with gardens and plantations of Eucalyptus and Acacia heterophylla, trees introduced from Australia, around them; and the broad excellent roads are bordered by Cassia glauca bushes with a bright orange flower, honeysuckles, fox-gloves, geraniums, roses, and masses of the tall Lobelia excelsa. A graceful white iris is also common.
This charming spot, now that the roads are planted with tall trees, and the hedges filled with all the familiar flowers introduced from old England, while curling smoke ascends through the foliage, and suggests the idea of chimneys and warm firesides, is as unlike India, and as like an English watering-place, as can be imagined. The tower of the church, seen from many points of view, increases the resemblance, which is certainly not lessened by the rosy cheeks and healthy looks of the children, and the fresh invigorating mountain air. But when a few miles from the station, and out of sight of all English associations, there was much that reminded me of the pajonales in the chinchona region of Caravaya at a first glance: and I felt sanguine that all the pajonal chinchona-trees would thrive in most of the sholas on the Neilgherry hills, while suitable sites for those species which require a warmer climate would be found in the forest slopes which overlook the plains. A closer inspection confirmed me in this opinion.
CHAPTER XXII.
NEILGHERRY HILLS.