[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 Kothurs.”
[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-India 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.
THE END.
London: Printed by Samuel Bentley and Co., Bangor House, Shoe Lane.