MALABAR.

Calicut—Houses and gardens—Population of Malabar—Namburi Brahmins—Nairs—Tiars—Slaves—Moplahs—Assessment of rice-fields, of gardens, of dry crops—Other taxes—Voyage up the Beypoor river—The Conolly teak plantations—Wundoor—Backwood cultivation—Sholacul—Sispara ghaut—Black-wood—Scenery—Sispara—View of the Nellemboor valley—Avalanche—Arrival at Ootacamund.

He who would desire to receive the most pleasant impression of India, on a first arrival, must follow in the wake of Vasco de Gama, and land on the coast of Malabar, the garden of the peninsula. Here Nature is clad in her brightest and most inviting robes, the scenery is magnificent, the fields and gardens speak of plenty, and the dwellings of the people are substantial and comfortable.

As we steamed into the anchorage at Calicut, on board the little yacht 'Pleiad,' no appearance of any town was visible, and no building except a tall white lighthouse. Thick groves of cocoanut-trees line the shore, and are divided from the sea by a belt of sand; while undulating green hills rise up behind, and the background of mountains was hidden by banks of clouds. The whole scene bore a close resemblance to one of the Sandwich or Society Islands, down to the canoes which came off to us the moment the anchor was let go. They are hewn out of the trunk of the jack-tree, with an upper bulwark fastened with coir twine; and the canoe-men were naked athletic-looking fellows, with enormous hats made of a frond of the tallipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera). When we shoved off from the 'Pleiad' a handsome fish-hawk, with white head and breast, was perched on the fore-topsail yard-arm, and sea-snakes were playing in the water alongside. In-shore there were a few native craft, called pattamars, at anchor. Pattamars are the vessels which have carried on the coasting trade on the western side of India from time immemorial. As in the days of Sinbad the sailor, their planks are not nailed, but sewn together with coir-twine, and they have high sterns and bows sheering rapidly aft. The deepest part is at the stem, whence the bottom curves inwards to the stern. A pattamar has two masts raking forward, with long picturesque lateen yards slung with one-third part before the mast, and two-thirds abaft. They never attempt to tack, but always ware, and if taken aback there is no alternative but either to wait until she comes round, or to capsize.

On landing at Calicut, a carriage drawn by two white bullocks was, through the hospitality of Mr. Patrick Grant, the Collector of Malabar, waiting for us on the sandy beach, to convey us to his house; a drive of about two miles. The excellent road, of a bright red colour from the soil being composed of laterite, passes through groves of cocoanut-trees, interspersed with many houses, each surrounded by its garden of mangos, nux vomica trees, jacks with pepper-vines creeping over them, and palm-trees. The houses are all substantial and comfortable-looking, built of square blocks of laterite joined with chunam, or lime made from calcined sea-shells, and roofed with tiles. The laterite or iron-clay is a rock full of cavities and pores like coral, overlying the granite which forms the basis of Malabar. When excluded from the air it is so soft that any iron instrument can readily cut it, and is dug up in square masses with a pickaxe, and afterwards shaped into blocks with a knife or trowel. After exposure it soon becomes as hard, and is as durable as bricks. Each house has a cocoanut safe or store-room on one side, of open wood-work. Many people were walking along the road, naked men with huge tallipot-palm hats, and women with nothing on but bright-coloured petticoats, looking picturesque in the foreground and middle distance of the palm-shaded vistas. At intervals the cocoanut groves were broken by fields of vivid green paddy, and tanks filled with red lotus-flowers.

From Mr. Grant's house, on the top of a rounded grassy hill, there is an extensive and very beautiful view of the undulating hills and dales of Malabar, generally covered with forest; with the ocean on one side, and the Wynaad mountains on the other. Malabar is 188 miles long, 25 miles broad in the northern, and 70 in the southern half, and contains 6262 square miles. It is divided into 17 Talooks or districts, and has a population of 1,602,914 souls; of whom 1,165,174 are Hindus, 414,126 Moplahs, and 23,614 Christians.

The people of Malabar are a thriving active race, the men well built and handsome, and the women remarkable for their beauty. The highest caste among the Hindus is that of the Namburi Brahmins, who claim all the land below the ghauts, and appear to have actually possessed a large portion of it previous to the invasion of Hyder Ali of Mysore. They declare that when Parasu Rama, one of the incarnations of Vishnu, hurled his axe from the mountains, the ocean receded, leaving the land of Kerala, as Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore were called; which he gave to the Namburi Brahmins. It is true that the undulating flat-topped hills, which cover the part of Malabar near Calicut, are like the waves of the sea, and appear as if the ocean in receding had forced channels, and thus formed the intervening valleys. The Namburis are fast dying out: they are landed proprietors, and perform such offices as bestowing holy water and ashes, or performing poojah or worship for the other Hindus, but never enter the public service.

The most important portion of the population is included in the eleven classes of Nairs,[390] a race of pure Sudra caste. They pretend to be born soldiers, and formed the armies of the Zamorin and Cochin Rajahs, the lower castes not being allowed to bear arms. The Nairs now hold most of the land in Malabar, and are frequently very rich. Both the Zamorin of Calicut and the Rajah of Cochin are Nairs; and the origin of their rule is said to have been as follows. About a thousand years ago, a Viceroy of the Sholum Rajah ruled over Malabar, named Cheruman Permal, who made himself independent, and divided the country among his nobles, of whom five were of the Kshatri caste, and seven were Nairs. After the division it was found that one of his bravest officers, the ancestor of the present Zamorin or Tamori Rajah, had been left out; Cheruman Permal, therefore, gave him his sword, and all the territory in which a cock crowing at a certain small temple could be heard. Hence Calicut, from Colicodu, a cock-crowing.[391] Down to the time of Tippoo the whole of Malabar was governed by the descendants of the sisters of these thirteen Nair chiefs. The Zamorin of Calicut has some influence, though he is much reduced in wealth and importance since the days of Vasco de Gama.

The Nairs live under the remarkable institution called murroo-muka-tayum. Sisters never leave their homes, but receive visits from male acquaintances, and the brothers go out to other houses, to their lady-loves, but live with their sisters. If a younger brother settles in a new house, he takes his favourite sister with him, and not the woman who, according to the custom in all other countries, should keep house for him. The man's mother manages the house, and after her death his eldest sister takes her place; but no man has any idea who his father is, and the children of his sisters are his heirs. Moveable property is divided amongst the children of the sisters of the deceased equally, and the land is managed by the eldest male of the family, but each individual has a right to a share in the income.

This strange custom gives the women an important position; and as they are pretty, and take pains with their personal appearance, their influence is very great. The Nairs are addicted to drink, and may eat venison, fowls, and fish; and the families are fond of gaiety, and of visiting among people of their own rank, when there is much talking and singing. Most of the men, as well as the women, read and write in their own character, and there is a Government Gazette printed in the Malayalim language. The Collector was anxious, also, to establish a paper in Malayalim, containing general information, which would no doubt have an excellent effect, but the difficulty is to find a good native editor.

Next in rank to the Nairs come the Tiars or Shanars, a stout, good-looking, hard-working race, who do not pretend to Sudra origin. Formerly the Nairs exacted deference from the Tiars with extreme cruelty and arrogance, treating them more like brutes than men; and if a Tiar defiled a Nair by touching him, he was instantly cut down. But British rule is gradually uprooting these caste barbarisms, and the position of the Tiars is improving. Some of them hold appointments as clerks in Government offices, and they are protected by just and equal laws. The Tiars form the mass of the field labourers; but the proper duty of their caste is to extract juice from the palm-tree, and either boil it into jaggery (unrefined sugar), or distil it. Their women are exceedingly pretty, with masses of long hair; but there is a prevalent custom for all the brothers of a family to have but one wife amongst them to save expense, which leads to most disastrous consequences. Below the Tiars there are several outcast tribes; among them the Churmas or slaves, a miserable and down-trodden race, possibly the remnant of the aboriginal inhabitants. Even now they are slow to understand that they are not slaves, and land on which there are most Churmas still sells at the highest price.

The Moplahs, or Mohammedans of Malabar, are descended from Arab mariners and traders by native women, and hence their name, from Mah-pilla "son of the mother." They have certainly been established in Malabar for a thousand years, if not more, as it is on record that the Viceroy Cheruman Permal, who then divided the country amongst his chiefs, was converted by a Moplah, and sailed for Mecca. All the sympathies of the Moplahs are with Arabia and the Red Sea, and they frequently undertake pilgrimages to Mecca. Respecting their creed they are fanatical, and are easily roused to fury by an insult, or an attempt on the part of the Nairs to treat them as a lower caste. On these occasions they run mucks; but in ordinary times they are hard-working, intelligent, abstemious, excellent boatmen, and capital backwoodsmen. Many of the Moplahs are very wealthy. Their mosques, however, are poor edifices, not to be distinguished from ordinary dwelling-houses, and the temples of the Hindus are no better. There is no attempt at ornamental architecture in the religious buildings of Malabar.

One-fifth of the collectorate of Malabar is taken up with rice and garden cultivation, the remaining four-fifths being covered with forest, or cleared for dry grains and coffee plantations. The land revenue, taking the average of five years ending in 1858-59, is 255,000l. The assessment of the rice-lands is essentially the same as that fixed by the Government of Tippoo Sultan of Mysore in 1783-84. Though unequal, and in some places burdensome, it is on the whole light, and, except in two of the Talooks,[392] it is lighter in the north than in the south. As an example of the inequality of the land-tax, I may mention that the district of Pattaumby, on the river Ponany, is very highly and unfairly assessed, as it is said, from the following cause. Before the invasion of Tippoo all the land in Malabar was in the hands of feudal chiefs; there was no land-tax, and the Zamorin and other Rajahs were supported by the produce of their own estates. The first ruler who imposed a land-tax was the Mysore conqueror. Any village which offended his officers was highly assessed; and hence the present inequalities, which will, however, be corrected by the new Survey and Assessment Commission. In the case of Pattaumby the accountant quarrelled with the landowners, and threatened to impose a heavy assessment, and, when they attempted to murder him, he escaped to Wynaad, and sent in his report to Tippoo.

All land in Malabar is private property, and the landlord gets 20 to 40 per cent. of the net rent, the remainder being the Government demand. From the gross produce of the rice-fields 20 per cent. is deducted for reaping and other small charges called puddum, the remainder being available gross rent. From the gross rent one-third is deducted as the expense of cultivation, called vitoo vally; one third as the cultivator's share, or koshoo labon, whether he be a jemakar or proprietor, a kanomkar or mortgagee, or a pattamkar or renter; and the remaining third is the pattom, net produce, or rent. Of this last third the Government share is 65 per cent., leaving 35 per cent. as the share of the proprietor. The Government share is thus a little less than a quarter of the gross produce.

The assessment is not calculated on the extent of land, but on the amount of seed required to sow a given space, according to the quality of the soil, which is divided into three classes, namely pasma (clay), rasee pasma (sand and clay), and rasee (sand). On an average the soil does not yield more than tenfold, and most of it bears only one crop. Some lands are sown in April or May, and the crops cut in August or September. These are chiefly in the coast Talooks. Others are sown in September and October, and the crops cut in January and February. The seeds are raised on small pieces of land, and the plants, when young, removed by hand, and planted in the paddy-fields.

The garden assessment, as it is called, on cocoanut-trees, the great wealth of Malabar, betel-palms, and jacks, was fixed in 1820.

The cocoanut-trees are divided according to their situations and soils into five classes—the first and second classes being attivepoo, or sea-coast; and the third, fourth, and fifth, karavepoo, or inland cocoanut-trees. Each tree pays, on an average, eighteen pies,[393] those which are unproductive from age or youth being excluded. The betel-nut palms pay, on an average, six pies, and the jack-trees twenty-eight pies; but the tax on gardens is not more than forty per cent. of the landlord's rent. A cocoanut-tree is estimated to bear at least sixteen to forty nuts in the year, according to its site; and the owner of a plantation derives profit from the leaves as well as from the husks and shells of the nut. The leaves, used for covering houses, sell at two and a half to five Rs. the thousand, each tree yielding ten to fifteen annually; and the husks, for coir ropes, fetch six annas the thousand.[394]

The betel-nut palm (Areca catechu), which is also taxed has a long slender smooth stem, and graceful curving fronds. I have seen palm-trees in the South Sea islands, many kinds in the forests of South America, and in India; but, of the whole tribe, the betel-nut palm is certainly the most elegant and beautiful. Dr. Hooker likens it "to an arrow shot from heaven, raising its graceful head and feathery crown in luxuriance and beauty above the verdant slopes." A tree will produce 300 nuts in the year, and continues to bear for twenty-five years. The nut is very hard, the size of a cherry, and is chewed by all the natives of India with the leaves of the betel-pepper (Chavica betel) spread with chunam. It is cut into long narrow pieces, and rolled up in the leaves of the betel-pepper or pawn. It makes the mouth and teeth red, and gives the chewer a disgusting appearance. The consumption must be enormous, for it is chewed by 50,000,000 of men, and, next to tobacco, is the most extensively used narcotic; but it has none of the excellent properties of the coca-leaf of the Peruvians.

The jack (Artocarpus integrifolius), the only other tree which is taxed in Malabar, grows to a considerable size, and the wood is much used for furniture of all kinds. The fruit, a favourite article of food, is of enormous dimensions, and grows out of the trunk. In Travancore they put the whole fruit in the ground, and, when the young shoots grow up, the stems are tied together with straw, and by degrees they form one stem, bearing fruit in six or seven years.[395] Besides the taxed trees, the gardens round Calicut generally contain mangos and nux vomica.

In addition to the rice or wet cultivation, and the above-mentioned trees, the upland or dry cultivation of rice and sesame or gingelee oil-seed is assessed on an annual inspection: forty per cent. of the gross produce of the former being deducted, on account of the peculiar labour and probable loss, and twenty per cent. of the remainder being the Government share. The sesame cultivation has no deduction from the gross produce; and ginger, pepper, and some other dry crops are free of land-tax. The pepper cultivation is chiefly carried on in northern Malabar, and ginger in the Shernaad district, south of Calicut, by the Moplahs.[396]

The other taxes are abkarry, or the privilege of selling liquors, which is either farmed by public sale, or levied from the toddy-drawers, when it is called kutty-chatty (knife and pot) tax; mohturfa on houses, shops, fishing-boats, oil-mills, and looms; licences, stamps, and the salt monopoly; the whole revenue of Malabar in 1859 having been 266,860l. The income-tax had not yet been levied at the time of our visit, but its nature had been carefully explained to the people, it had been stripped of everything that was offensive or inquisitorial, and no difficulty was anticipated in its introduction, although it was very generally considered that it was unwise and impolitic, and that it would be unproductive. In the matter of taxes there was a striking contrast between Peru, whence we had just come, and where they are scarcely known, and this land of manifold imposts.

On the whole, however, Malabar is a splendid possession; the people are very flourishing, the population increasing, and cultivation rapidly encroaching on the forests. There is no gang robbery, but occasional housebreaking, and a good many murders, often caused by jealousy, the criminals usually making a full confession, and thus saving much trouble.

In the evening we embarked in a canoe which had been prepared for us near the fine timber bridge over the Calicut river, on the road to Beypoor. The setting sun and banks of rosy clouds were visible through the graceful fronds of the cocoanut-trees as we drove along the shady road, with occasional glimpses of the sea. The canoe was very long, and cut out of one trunk, with raised bow and stern, ornamentally carved. It was pulled by four tall wiry-looking Moplahs, with nothing on but clouts and huge umbrella-hats, made of the tallipot palm;[397] and a fifth steered with a paddle. Their oars were long bamboos, with circular boards fastened to one end by neat coir seizings. We started a little after sunset, and passed from the Calicut river by a backwater into the Beypoor, where there were many shallow places, and the Moplahs had constantly to jump out and drag the canoe over them. The banks of the river are wooded down to the water's edge, with groves of slender betel-nut palms rising aloft, and standing out against the starry sky. The foliage was covered with brilliant fire-flies, and here and there we passed a hut, with its owner standing on the shore, waving a burning brand. All night the boatmen sang noisy glees, and in the morning we reached the landing-place at Eddiwanna, forty miles from Calicut, and near the Government teak plantations of Nellamboor.

These plantations were originated by Mr. Conolly, the late Collector of Malabar, with a view to the establishment of nurseries for replenishing the teak forests, as nearly all the fine timber had been felled many years ago. There is a great deal in North Canara of small size, and still more in Cochin and Travancore; but the reckless system of felling threatened the same results as has already overtaken the supply of chinchona-bark in South America. The only forests containing teak, in Malabar, in which Government has a proprietary right, are 25 square miles in the Palghat talook, where all the mature trees have long since gone to the Bombay dockyard; but in 1842 leases of forest-land were obtained from the Zamorin for the cultivation of teak, 70 to 80 square miles in extent, chiefly in the Ernaad talook, near Nellamboor. This most important and now successful measure is due to the zeal and perseverance of Mr. Conolly, and there is a good prospect of the stock of teak-timber in these forests being eventually replenished. The trees, however, require a growth of 60 or 80 years to reach a maturity fitting the wood for shipbuilding; but it is then unequalled by any other known timber; it does not injure iron, and is not liable to shrink in width.

It was some time before the method of inducing the teak-seeds to germinate was discovered, and several experiments were tried. In the forests it was observed that the seeds were prepared for growth by losing the hard outer shell through the warmth caused by fires which annually consume the brushwood. Mr. Conolly, therefore, burnt a coating of hay over the ground where the seeds were sown. This trial was unsuccessful, and in 1843 it was found that the best method was to steep the nuts in water for thirty-six hours, then sow them in holes four inches apart, and half an inch under the surface, covering the beds with straw, so as to prevent evaporation, and gently watering them every evening. By following this plan the seeds germinated, and sprouted in from four to eight weeks. In 1844 as many as 50,000 young trees, raised in the adjacent nurseries, were planted, eight feet apart, in the cleared ground near Nellamboor, along the banks of the Beypoor river, which had been cleared of jungle. The seedlings are transplanted from the nursery at the age of three months, and for the first seven or eight years they sprout up very fast, but afterwards they grow slowly. From 1843 to 1859 as many as 1,200,000 trees have been put down, and they are now planted at the rate of 70,000 a year. Much care is required in systematic thinning and pruning, and, for the superintendence of this important work, an annual visit is paid to the plantations by Mr. McIvor, who is now so ably conducting the chinchona experiment on the Neilgherry hills.

We were met by Mr. McIvor at Eddiwanna, and started for the village of Wundoor, six miles distant, in munsheels or hammocks, slung to bamboos with a shade over them, and carried by six men, who kept up unearthly yells the whole time. The road leads through rice-cultivation and groves of betel-nut palms, jacks, and mangos. Wundoor is a pretty village, with an avenue of sumach-trees[398] leading up to the post-house or travellers' bungalow. These post-houses, which are erected by the Government at easy stages along all the roads in India, for the convenience of travellers, are exceedingly comfortable, and render travelling in India as easy and commodious as it is the reverse in Peru and other parts of South America. At Wundoor the first bungalow we had seen put an end to all idea of having to rough it while travelling in India. The building contained several clean rooms, with cane-bottom sofas, arm-chairs, and tables; and outside there was a pleasant verandah, with a glorious view of the Koondah mountains, which it was necessary to ascend on our road to the Neilgherries. A clump of trees, consisting of jacks, mangos, and peepuls, formed a huge arch, through which there was an enchanting landscape of smiling hill and dale, with the dense forest beyond, crowned by the broken outline of the distant mountains.

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.