Our only loss was the glass shade of a candlestick, which the thieves, supposing to be silver, had carried into the verandah, where, we presume, after discovering that it was only plated, they had thrown it upon the ground and abandoned it as a useless article. We had, it is true, pistols in the room, but as the least movement might have produced uncomfortable results; and, moreover, we felt uncommonly like Juvenal’s poor traveller, quite reckless of consequences as regarded goods and chattels, we resolved not to be blood-thirsty. At the same time we confess that such conduct was by no means heroic. But an officer of our own corps, only a few weeks before, was severely wounded, and narrowly escaped being murdered, not fifty miles from the scene of our night’s adventure, and we had little desire to figure among the list of casualties recorded in the bimonthly summaries of Indian news.
You would scarcely believe the extent of benefit in a sanitary point of view, derived from riding about the country in the way we have described. Every discomfort seems to do one good: an amount of broiling and wetting, which, in a cantonment, would lead directly to the cemetery, on the road seems only to add to one’s ever-increasing stock of health. The greatest annoyance, perhaps, is the way in which the servants and effects suffer; a long journey almost invariably knocks up the former for an unconscionable time, and permanently ruins the latter.
We are still at Matypolliam, but our stay will be short, as the bridge is now nearly repaired. By weighty and influential arguments we must persuade the Kotwal[141]—a powerful native functionary—to collect a dozen baggage-bullocks and a score of naked savages, destined to act as beasts of burden: no moderate inducement will make the proprietors of the carts drive their jaded cattle up the steep acclivities of the hills. A ridiculous sight it is—the lading of bullocks untrained to carry weight; each animal requires at least half-a-dozen men to keep him quiet; he kicks, he butts, he prances, he shies: he is sure to break from them at the critical moment, and, by an opportune plunge, to dash your unhappy boxes on the ground, scattering their contents in all directions. What a scene of human and bestial viciousness, of plunging and bellowing, of goading of sides, punching of stomachs, and twisting of tails! We must, however, patiently sit by and witness it: otherwise the fellows will not start till late in the afternoon.
You would scarcely believe that the inmates of that little bungalow which just peeps over the brow of the mountain, are enjoying an Alpine and almost European climate, whilst we are still in all the discomforts of the tropics. The distance between us is about three miles, as the crow flies—eleven along the winding road. We must prepare for the change by strapping thick coats to our saddle-bows, and see that our servants are properly clothed in cloths and flannels. Otherwise, we render ourselves liable to the peine forte et dure of a catarrh of three months’ probable duration, and our domestics will certainly be floored by fever and ague, cholera or rheumatism.
It is just nine o’clock A.M., rather an unusual time for a start in these latitudes. But the eddying and roaring of Bhawany’s muddy stream warns us that there has been rain amongst the hills. The torrents are passable now; they may not be so a few hours later. So we will mount our nags, and gallop over the five miles of level country, partially cleared of the thick jungle which once invested it, to the foot of the Neilgherry hills.
We now enter the ravine which separates the Oolacul from the Coonoor range. A vast chasm it is, looking as if Nature, by a terrible effort, had split the giant mountain in twain, and left its two halves standing separated opposite each other. A rapid and angry little torrent brawls down the centre of the gap towards the Bhawany river, and the sides are clothed with thick underwood, dotted with tall wide-spreading trees. After the dusty flats of Mysore, and even the green undulations of Malabar, you admire the view with a sensation somewhat resembling that with which you first gazed upon the “castled crag of Drachenfels,” when you visited it en route from monotonous France, uninteresting Holland, or unpicturesque Belgium. Probably, like certain enthusiastic individuals who have indited high-flown eulogies of Neilgherry beauty, you will mentally compare the scenery with that of the Alps, Apennines, or Pyrenees. We cannot, however, go quite so far with you: with a few exceptions the views generally—and this particularly—want grandeur and a certain nescio quid to make them really imposing.
Slowly our panting nags toil along the narrow parapetless road up the steep ascent of the Coonoor Pass. The consequence of the storm is that our pathway appears plentifully besprinkled with earth, stones, and trunks of trees, which have slipped from the inner side. In some places it has been worn by the rain down to the bare rock, and the gutters or channels of rough stone, built at an average distance of fifty yards apart to carry off the water, are slippery for horses, and must be uncommonly troublesome to wheeled conveyances. That cart which on the plains requires a single team, will not move here without eight pair of oxen; and yonder carriage demands the united energies of three dozen coolies, at the very least. As, however, its too-confiding owner has left it to a careless servant’s charge, it will most probably reach its destination in a state picturesque, if not useful—its springs and light gear hanging in graceful festoons about the wheels.
And now, after crossing certain torrents and things intended for bridges—during which, to confess the truth, we did feel a little nervous—our nags stand snorting at the side of the stream which forms the Coonoor Falls. Its bottom is a mass of sheet rock, agreeably diversified with occasional jagged points and narrow clefts: moreover, the water is rushing by with uncomfortable rapidity, and there is no visible obstacle to your being swept down a most unpleasant slope. In fact it is the kind of place usually described as growing uglier the more you look at it, so you had better try your luck as soon as possible. Wheel the nag round, “cram” him at the place, and just when he is meditating a sudden halt, apply your spurs to his sides and your heavy horsewhip to his flanks, trusting to Providence for his and your reaching the other side undamaged.
The Burleyar bungalow—a kind of half-way house, or rather an unfinished shed, built on an eminence to the right of the road,—informs us that we are now within six miles of our journey’s end. The air becomes sensibly cooler, and we begin to look down upon the sultry steaming plain below with a sensation of acute enjoyment.