We might as well spend a day or two at Coonoor. Ootacamund is at least ten miles off, and it is perfectly useless to hurry on, as our baggage will certainly not arrive before the week is half over, even if it does then. Not, however, at the government bungalow—that long rambling thing perched on the hill above the little bazaar, and renowned for broken windows, fireless rooms, and dirty comfortless meals, prepared by a native of “heathen caste.” We will patronize the hotel kept, in true English style, by Mr. Davidson, where we may enjoy the luxuries of an excellent dinner, a comfortable sitting-room, and a clean bed.
A survey of the scenery in this part of the Neilgherries takes in an extensive range of swelling waving hill, looking at a distance as if a green gulf had suddenly become fixed for ever. On the horizon are lofty steeps, crowned with remnants of forests, studded with patches of cultivation, and seamed with paths, tracks, and narrow roads. There is little or no table-land: the only level road in the vicinity is scarcely a mile long. At the bottom of the hollow lies the bazaar, and upon the rising knolls around are the nine or ten houses which compose the first European settlement you have seen on the Blue Hills.
Coonoor occupies the summit of the Matypolliam Pass, about five thousand eight hundred and eighty feet above the level of the sea. The climate is warmer than that of the other stations, and the attractions of an occasional fine day even during the three odious months of June, July, and August, fill it with invalids flying from the horrors of Ootacamund. The situation, however, is not considered a good one: its proximity to the edge of the hills, renders it liable to mists, fogs, and a suspicion of the malaria which haunts the jungly forests belting the foot of the hills. Those who have suffered from the obstinate fevers of the plains do well to avoid Coonoor.
The day is fine and bright—a sine quâ non in Neilgherry excursions,—if the least cloud or mist be observed hanging about the mountain tops, avoid trips!—so we will start off towards that scarcely-distinguishable object, half peak, half castle, that ends the rocky wall which lay on our left when we rode up the Pass.
You look at Oolacul[142] Droog, as the fort is called, and wonder what could have been the use of it. And you are justified in your amazement. But native powers delight in cooping up soldiery where they may be as useless as possible; they naturally connect the idea of a strong place with isolated and almost inaccessible positions, and cannot, for the life of them conceive, what Europeans mean by building their fortifications on level ground. Hyder Ali and his crafty son well knew that the unruly chieftains of the plains would never behave themselves, unless overawed and overlooked by some military post which might serve equally well for a watch-tower and a dungeon. We think and act otherwise, so such erections go to ruin.
Starting, we pursue a road that runs by the travellers’ bungalow, descends a steep, rough, and tedious hill—where we should prefer a mule to a horse—crosses two or three detestable watercourses, and then skirting the western end of the Oolacul chasm shows us a sudden ascent. Here we dismount for convenience as well as exercise. The path narrows; it becomes precipitous and slippery, owing to the decomposed vegetation that covers it, and presently plunges into a mass of noble trees. You cannot see a vestige of underwood: the leaves are crisp under your feet; the tall trunks rise singly in all their sylvan glory, and the murmurs of the wind over the leafy dome above, inform you that
This is the forest primæval—