MADURA AND TRICHINOPOLY.

Arrive at Madura—Peopling of India—The Dravidian race—Brahmin colonists in Southern India—Foundation of Madura—Pandyan dynasty—Tamil literature—Aghastya—Naik dynasty—The Madura Pagoda—The Sangattar—The Choultry—Tirumalla Naik's palace—Caste prejudices—Trichinopoly—Coleroon anicut—Rice cultivation—The palmyra palm—Caroor—Return to the Neilgherries—Shervaroy hills—Courtallum.

The road from the foot of the Pulney hills to Madura, a distance of upwards of forty miles, is very bad, but it passes through avenues of shady banyan and peepul trees most of the way, and is, therefore, not so wearisome for the natives on foot, as for a European jolting at the rate of three miles an hour in a bullock-cart without springs.

Near Madura there are tracts of rice cultivation, plantain groves, and topes of palm-trees; and at sunrise I came in sight of the gopurams or towers of the great pagoda, rising above thick groves of palmyra palms, with a foreground of bright green paddy-fields. The city is very interesting from its remarkable palaces and temples, as the capital of a once powerful kingdom, and as the ancient centre of Tamil civilization: and a few words respecting the former history of this part of India appear necessary before describing the pagoda, and other architectural remains of the former greatness of Madura.

Tradition relates that in the most ancient times the country from the mouths of the Godavery to Cape Comorin was one vast forest. Here the great Aryan hero Rama is said to have resided during his exile, with his wife Sita, and here he commenced his wars against the Rakshasas or fiends, who divided with hermits and sages the possession of the wilderness. The simple truth probably is that these "fiends" were the original inhabitants of Southern India, which was called Dravida Desa, and that Rama was the first Hindu invader. Dravida denotes the country of the Dravidas, who are described in Sanscrit writings as men of an outcast tribe, descended from degraded Kshatriyas.

The history of the early peopling of India, by its various races, is involved in much obscurity; and the little light which has been thrown upon it is chiefly derived from a comparison of languages. The prevailing opinion is that India was originally inhabited by a people whose remains are to be found in the Koles, Sontals, Bheels, and other wild hill tribes; that the Dravidians, a Scythic people, came from the north, settled in Hindustan, and drove the aborigines into the hills and fastnesses; that in their turn the Dravidians were driven across the Vindhya mountains by another Scythic race, and became the ancestors of the present population of Southern India; and that finally the Aryan race, with its Vedic civilization, brought this pre-Aryan Scythic race under subjection, and formed it into the servile Sudra caste.

Thus the Dravidian people of Southern India were of Scythic origin, and they spoke a language from which the four modern ones of the Madras Presidency, Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, and Malayalam,[438] are derived. These are all grouped as Dravidian languages, and their source is no longer a matter of doubt. It was formerly supposed that they were Aryan, from the great number of apparently Indo-Germanic roots; but it is now known, from the structure of their grammar, that they belong to the great Turanian or Scythic group of tongues. Mr. Caldwell considers that the Scythian family to which they are most closely allied is the Finnish or Ugrian;[439] and in this view Professor Max MÜller concurs with him.[440] The ancient Dravidian religion, before the people were converted to the belief taught in the Puranas, also favours Mr. Caldwell's view. If we may judge from the creed which still lingers in Tinnevelly and other districts, it consisted in the worship of evil spirits by means of bloody sacrifices and frantic dances, while a Supreme Being was acknowledged but not venerated, and there was no trace of worship of the elements. In these respects it closely resembled the Shamanism of the Scythic races of High Asia.

It is tolerably certain that the Dravidian races had attained to some degree of civilization before the Aryans appeared in their country, and, with a system of castes, introduced the worship of Vishnu and Siva. One evidence of the ancient civilization of the Dravidians is that they possessed a system of numerals up to 1000, essentially the same in all the four languages; though in counting above 1000 they make use of Sanscrit numerals. From the existence of these native numerals among the Dravidian nations, Mr. Crawford draws the inference that these people must have attained a considerable measure of civilization before they adopted the Hinduism of the north, and hence stood in no need of foreign numerals.[441]

From the time of Rama, who appears to have been assisted in his invasion of Lanka (Ceylon) by a Dravidian chief, now deified as the monkey God Hanuman, the influence of Hinduism rapidly increased, and caste prejudices spread over Southern India. But the annals are far too obscure, and too deeply buried under extravagant fable, to enable us to form any idea of the time and manner of the complete inoculation of the Dravidian races with Brahminical legends, caste observances, and Hindu religious ideas. It is clear, however, that "to the early Brahminical colonists the Dravidians are indebted for the higher arts of life, and the first elements of literary culture."[442]

The Brahmins came to Southern India not as conquerors, but as peaceful settlers and instructors; and their influence was obtained through their superior civilization and learning. They gave the name of Sudra to all the upper and middle classes of native Dravidians, while the servile classes were not, as in Hindustan, called Sudras, but Pariars. Thus, while in the north a Sudra is a low-caste man, in the south he ranks next to a Brahmin.

It is said that, after the avatur of Rama, pilgrims came in great numbers to visit the scenes of his triumphs, and, settling in the country, cleared land for cultivation, and laid the foundations of future principalities. One of these settlers was a man named Pandya, of the Vellaler or agricultural caste, who established himself in the south; and his descendant Kula Sekhara, son of Sampanna Pandya, was the first king of Madura. Some centuries elapsed, probably five, before the foundation of the city of Madura, during which the settlers were occupied in clearing the ground, and forming themselves into an organized state; and it has been conjectured that the building of the capital was commenced between 500 and 600 B.C. Previously the kings of the Pandyan dynasty resided at a place called Kurkhi.[443]

Another tradition states that a merchant lost his way in the forests, and discovered an ancient temple dedicated to Siva and his wife Durga, which had been erected by the God Indra. The merchant was directed by the God to announce to the Pandyan king, named Kula Sekhara, that it was the will of Siva that a city should be erected on the spot. Kula Sekhara, therefore, cleared the forest, rebuilt the temple, and founded a city. On the completion of the work a shower of nectareal dew fell from heaven, spreading a sweet film on the ground, and hence the name of Madura (sweet).[444]

The wife of Siva became incarnate as the daughter and successor of this prince, under the name of Minakshi; and Siva himself as Sundara, or the handsome, was her mortal husband. Thus the Pandyan kings, like many of the dynasties of ancient Greece, placed their gods at the head of their genealogical tree. The immigration of a colony of Aryan Brahmins from Magadha into the Madura country, and the commencement of Tamil civilization and literature, have been placed, by Mr. Caldwell and others, in about the seventh century B.C.

At the Christian Æra the kings of Madura were very powerful, and had extended their dominions over the whole of the peninsula. They sent two embassies to Rome—the first in the eighteenth year after the death of Julius CÆsar, which found the Emperor Augustus at Tarragona; and the second six years later, when he was at Samos.[445] Subsequently the kingdom was reduced in size by the independence of Malabar, the rise of Chira in the west, of the state of Chola in the east, and of Ramnad in the south.[446] A long list of kings is mentioned in the native annals, with numerous wars, first against the Buddhists, and afterwards with the Rajahs of Chola and Ramnad.

The most flourishing period of Madura history appears to have been during the reigns of Vamsa Sekhara and his son Vamsa Churamani, in about 200 A.D. They erected grand temples and palaces, and the more ancient and massive parts of edifices still in existence probably date from their reigns. A college, called Sangattar, was founded at Madura, at this time, for the cultivation of the Tamil language and literature.[447] The first stimulus was given to this movement by the famous Rishi or sage, Aghastya, the leader of a colony of Brahmins, whose migration to the south is mentioned in the Ramayana. He was a chief agent in diffusing the worship of Siva in the Deccan; and it is supposed that there was a second man of learning of the same name in the eighth or ninth century. Aghastya is said to have been the offspring of two gods, Mithra and Varuna, and he received the Brahminical string from seven holy prophets. He became a most wonderful and enlightened personage, and composed works on medicine, moral and natural philosophy, and botany, in high Tamil verse, called Yellacanum, greatly improving and refining his adopted language. Aghastya's memory is deeply venerated by the Tamil people, and his healing spirit is still believed to hover amongst the mountains of Courtallum, in Tinnevelly;[448] where he is worshipped as Agast-isvara, or the star Canopus.

From the ninth to the tenth centuries the Jain religion predominated in Madura. The Jains were animated by a national and anti-Brahminical feeling, and it is chiefly to them that Tamil is indebted for its high culture and independence of Sanscrit. They were expelled in the reign of Sundara Pandya, at about the time when Marco Polo visited India. The Mohammedans first made an inroad into the Deccan in the reign of Alla-ud-deen of Delhi in 1293, they crossed the Kistna in 1310, and advanced as far as Rameswara in 1374.

After reigning for many centuries the Pandyan dynasty became tributary to the powerful Brahminical kingdom of Bijayanuggur in Mysore, in about 1380 A.D. A list of more than seventy kings is given in the annals.[449] But in the fifteenth century an officer of the Bijayanuggur Rajah, named Nagama Naik, was installed as feudatory King of Madura, and founded the Naik dynasty. He procured the cession of Trichinopoly from the Chola Rajah, and his son Viswanath Naik distributed the district of Tinnevelly amongst his adherents of the Totia caste, the ancestors of the Poligars of Tinnevelly. His descendant Tirumalla Naik, who succeeded in 1623 A.D., had a long and flourishing reign, and public edifices still furnish splendid proofs of his wealth and magnificence. He died in 1657 A.D.; and the Naik dynasty, which came to an end in 1730 A.D.,[450] was followed by obscure feudatories of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, who eventually made way for British rule.

I went early one morning, with Mr. Levinge the Collector, to visit the great pagoda of Madura, some of the oldest parts of which date from the reigns of Pandyan kings in the eighth century. It covers twenty acres of ground, and is surrounded by a high stone wall painted in red and white stripes, the Hindoo holy colours. The walls form a perfect square, and in the centre of each side there is a lofty gopuram or tower. These towers are broad, solid, and very lofty masses of brick, in the form of a truncated pyramid. From the base to the summit they are one mass of sculptured figures, representing all the gods in Hindu mythology, rising tier above tier to the summit, and decreasing in size with the height. Each end of the top of the gopuram is ornamented by a fan-shaped structure of brick-work, representing the hood of a cobra. We entered the pagoda by a gateway in the left corner of the wall facing the great choultry built by Tirumalla Naik. Here the warden of the pagoda was waiting for us, who had arrived just before in his palkee. He is of Sudra caste, a man advanced in years, and of much reputed holiness; and he received us in a state of nudity, with the exception of a yellow gauze scarf, his belly, chest, and forehead being smeared with holy ashes. A crowd of Brahmins accompanied us.

A long corridor leads from the entrance to the cloister, with a roof supported by stone pillars, between which elephants were stationed, gaudily painted and caparisoned. The cloister is the finest part of the interior of the pagoda. The walls are covered with paintings representing the marvellous adventures of Krishna, and the pillars supporting the roof of the galleries are roughly carved. The central space is occupied by "the tank of the golden lotus," with very dirty green water, and stone steps leading down from the cloister. The view from one corner of this tank is very striking; with green stagnant water as a foreground, rows of fantastically-carved pillars supporting the gallery on the opposite side, with the lofty gopurams in the rear, rising as it were from the graceful fronds of cocoanut-trees which waved over the roof of the cloisters. Sacred monkeys were running about in all directions over the roofs.

The Sangattar or literary college of Madura held its sittings in this cloister; and Siva is said to have presented it with a diamond bench which extended itself readily for such persons as were worthy to be on a level with the sages of the Sangattar, and excluded all who tried to sit on it without possessing the necessary qualifications. In other words, the learned corporation of Madura maintained a strict and exclusive monopoly. One day a man of the Pariar or lowest caste, named Tiruvallavar, appeared as a candidate for a seat on the bench of Sangattar professors. The sages were indignant at his presumption, but, as he was patronized by the Rajah, they were obliged to give his book a trial. It was to find a place on the bench, which the professors took care to occupy fully. But the miraculous bench extended itself to receive the book, which expanded and thrust all the sages off into "the tank of the golden lotus," and the Sangattar was abolished. This took place in about the ninth century, and the work of Tiruvallavar, called kural, and consisting of 1330 aphorisms, still exists, and is the oldest extant work in Tamil literature. Though rejected by the Sangattar, on account of the low caste of its author, it was received by the Rajah and people; and the college was abolished, or perhaps dissolved itself from mortification at this defeat.

In a corner of the cloister is the entrance to one of the gopurams, and we went up to the top. Holding on by the cobra's hood which crowns the tower, there was an extensive view of the town of Madura and surrounding country, with its bright green rice cultivation, groves of palmyra-palms, broad expanses of water, isolated masses of rock, and the Pulney hills in the far distance.

We passed from the cloister, and walked round the corridors which surround the holy of holies containing the Sokalinga, the sacred emblem of the God Siva, which no one but a Brahmin can enter; and the temple of Minakshi, his fish-eyed wife. The pillars in these corridors are curiously carved in the form of dancing-girls, elephant-headed Gods, Sivas, and bulls. Here I was decorated with garlands of flowers by the warden of the temple, and I saw that there was a flower-garden in a small enclosure near the cloister, to supply offerings of flowers for the ceremonial worship in the temple. In the Hindu religion bright-coloured or fragrant flowers take a prominent place as offerings to the gods. The arrows of Kama, the God of Love, were tipped with five flowers:[451] the asoka (Jonesia pinnata), a beautiful flower diversified with orange, scarlet, and bright-yellow tints, is consecrated to Siva; the lotus-flower, called kamata or padma, to Vishnu and his wife Lakshmi; a sweet-scented jasmine (Jasminum undulatum) to Vishnu, and Mariama the Goddess of Pariars; the superb crimson Ixora Bandhuca is offered at the shrines of Vishnu and Siva; and the Nauclea Cadumba, a stately tree, yields the holiest flower in India.[452] In an angle of one of the corridors all the jewels of the temple were spread out on a table for our inspection, and we sat down before them, by the side of the old warden. It was a truly magnificent display of wealth; and it was impossible not to feel that there must be deep faith and conviction in a religion which induces men to go about naked and in ashes, and to devote tens of thousands of rupees to ornament the mystic emblems of their Gods. I particularly noticed some sapphires of extraordinary size and brilliancy; the cover of the lingam, a cylinder of pure gold, four feet high, encrusted with pearls and rubies; the golden sceptre of Siva, three feet long, and one mass of rubies; the golden shoes and gauntlets of Siva and Minakshi, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and pearls; the head-dress of Minakshi of gold Trichinopoly-work, adorned with pearls and rubies, with enormous emeralds hanging from it; her playthings, consisting of golden birds overlaid with rubies and emeralds; and necklaces and bracelets covered with jewels of priceless value. There was also a costly gold chain presented by Mr. Peters, a former Collector, and another which had lately arrived from Agra, in an anonymous letter addressed to the pagoda.

From this corridor I was able to peep down a dark passage at the end of which there were some dim lights surrounding the sacred Soka-linga, but I could not distinguish anything. The warden told us that it was a piece of solid rock cropping out of the ground, and cut into the shape of a cylinder, with a rounded top, as the mysterious emblem of Siva, the God of reproduction. Its roots are said to be in the centre of the earth, and to have been there since the creation. The Pandyan kings, when they were dying, were taken into the innermost sanctuary of Siva's temple, to expire and be united with their God. Parallel with this holy of holies dedicated to the worship of Siva, in the form of his mystic emblem, is the temple of his wife Parvati, here better known as Minakshi, or the fish-eyed.

We then went into the hall of the thousand pillars, which are carved into the shape of gods or dancing-girls, and support a flat stone roof. Here some nautch-girls came dancing before us in silk trousers, long tunics, golden headdresses, and rings on their ears, noses, and toes; as we walked down the long vistas of pillars. Their motions are stiff and without grace, like the contortions of galvanized corpses, and they are generally very ugly, with black teeth. I was glad when they relieved us of their disgusting presence, as we were shown into a chamber near the outer door, where the horses and bulls used in the great processions are kept. These are made of solid silver, ornamented with precious stones, and on festivals the God and Goddess are mounted on them, and carried round the town.

This great pagoda is very richly endowed, and is one of the most famous in Southern India. It was originally, and for several centuries, the centre of Tamil civilization, and it is a very characteristic specimen of Hindu architecture. All originality and intellectual vigour has disappeared from amongst the Tamil people, under the blighting influence of foreign domination, but their devotional feeling appears to have survived; together with respect and veneration for the doctrines and aphorisms of their classic sages, among the more educated. Aghastya stands at the head of the Tamil authors, and the following confession of faith, in the Njana-nuru is attributed to him:—

"Worship thou the light of the Universe, who is One:
Who made the world in a moment, and placed good men in it;
Who afterwards himself dawned upon the earth as a Guru;
Who, without wife or family, as a hermit performed austerities;
Who, appointing loving sages to succeed him,
Departed again into Heaven:—worship Him."[453]

We left the pagoda by a corridor leading through one of the gopurams into the street, immediately in front of the great choultry erected by Tirumalla Naik. It consists of an immense hall of granite, 300 feet long by 80, supported by upwards of a hundred pillars of the same stone, elaborately carved, and about thirty feet high. One of them is formed of a single block of granite. Figures of the Madura kings of the Naik dynasty are carved on these pillars, amongst whom is Tirumalla Naik, the founder of the edifice. One curious group of carved figures represents a tradition of the old Pandyan times. It is related that a rich farmer, living near Madura, had twelve sons, who passed their time in the chace. A wild hog once attacked them, killed some, and chased the rest to the vicinity of a sage engaged in meditation. The angry ascetic cursed them, declaring that, in their future life, they should be hogs themselves. They were born again as porkers, but Minakshi took pity on them, officiated as their nurse, and they became men with pig's heads, in which capacity they are sculptured on one of the pillars of the choultry. The pig-headed brethren were taught the arts and sciences, and were eventually advanced to the ministerial administration of the affairs of the Pandyan kingdom. The choultry was originally built as a magnificent approach to the temple, and to receive the image of the God Siva for ten days every year. It was crowded with people, and the spaces between the pillars were occupied by traders selling silks and cotton-cloths, turbans, bags for betel, and trinkets.

Next to the great pagoda and the choultry, the most interesting architectural remains of the former grandeur of Madura are the ruins of the palace of Tirumalla Naik. They consist of a large quadrangular court, now roofless,[454] but apparently once covered over, with side aisles supported by massive stone pillars, rendered almost double their original size by a thick coating of chunam, or lime made with pounded sea-shells, which takes a very fine polish, like marble. These columns are exceedingly handsome, and their capitals bear evidence of Italian design.[455] They are in double rows, and the roof of the aisles is most elaborately carved with mythological figures, originally painted in bright colours. Numerous green paroquets were screaming and flying about near the roof. At the end of this splendid court, opposite the street entrance, there is a broad flight of steps leading up to an inner hall, where columns of the same massive character support a richly carved roof. The whole building has an exceedingly imposing effect, and in the sombre melancholy of its decay it gives a grand idea of the former civilization of the Tamil people; but as the English Judge now holds his court in a portion of the ruins, we must not say, with the Persian poet,—

"The spider now weaves its web in the palace of CÆsar,
The owl stands sentinel on the watch-tower of Afrasiab."

Tirumalla Naik also constructed a great tank, about a mile outside the town, said to be the finest in Southern India. It is an exact square, with sides 300 yards long faced with granite, and flights of steps down to the water, at intervals. In the centre there is a square island, rising in broad flights of steps from the water, and covered with a grove of trees, above which rises the tall tower of a pagoda.

The town of Madura, situated on the banks of the river Vaigay, contains about 50,000 inhabitants. It is by far the cleanest and best built city that I saw in India, with fine broad streets, and houses with tiled roofs extending far beyond the walls, so as to form verandahs supported by poles. Here and there a house with an upper story, belonging to some wealthy citizen, rose above the rest; and in the bazars there was a strong sickly smell of spices. Madura is indebted, for its superiority over other Indian towns, to Mr. Blackburn, a former Collector, and the inhabitants have erected a lamp on a tall pedestal to his memory.

On the day of my visit to the pagoda, the streets were densely crowded, the women were decked out in all their finery, and those of the Brahmin caste had their faces hideously stained with saffron. It was a festival in honour of some cow or other, who had been turned into a rock, through the excess of her love for Nandi, the bull on which the God Siva rides. The religious feelings of the people are displayed in these festivals, and whether they worship and venerate the stone or wooden image, or the attributes of God-like virtue and wisdom which the emblems connected with the image are intended to represent, my observations led me to believe that, in all classes, there was a display of most undoubted sincerity. In connection with their religious observances, the people of Southern India feel very strongly on the subject of caste distinctions. The Brahmins are fair skinned, of Aryan descent, and comparatively strangers, having been barely a thousand years in the country.[456] Next come the Sudras, who represent the upper classes of the Tamil race. The Vellaler or agricultural caste comes next, and then the Maravar and Kallar, or robber castes. The Prince of Ramnad, who is hereditary guardian of Rama's bridge, belongs to the Maravars, and the Rajah of Tondiman to the Kallars. Below the robber castes are the Shanars or toddy-drawers, who are free and proprietors of land; then the Pariars[457] and chucklers or slaves; then the Korawars or vagrant basket-makers, and last of all the shoemakers and low-caste washermen.

The higher castes had recently been outraged by the Shanars having been allowed to go in procession along the road, on the occasion of a marriage at ArpucatÉ, a populous mercantile town in the Madura district. This was done in defiance of all ancient customs and usages connected with caste, which are clearly defined and acknowledged by all classes of Hindus. The high-caste people defend their feeling of exclusiveness by urging that the Shanars and Pariars are guilty of one or other of the five great sins, namely, killing the sacred cow, theft, drunkenness, adultery, and lying: for that the Shanars draw toddy, and the Pariars eat meat. They claim for immemorial custom the same authority that is given in England to common law, and declare that the Shanars never had the right of parading the streets in procession, with music and flags. In considering this question it should not be forgotten that the Shanars and other low castes will no more allow a man of still lower caste to overstep his privileges by one hair's breadth than will a Sudra or a Brahmin. Even the Pariars are a well-defined, distinct, and ancient caste, jealous of the encroachments of the castes both above and below them: they have strong caste feelings, and treat the caste of shoemakers with contempt.[458] Thus, if the Shanars and Pariars insist upon their own caste privileges, it is difficult to see why they should be permitted to infringe upon those of the castes above them; and it would seem that a feeling of content and satisfaction with our rule would be best promoted by ensuring to all classes of the community the exclusive enjoyment of their own peculiar usages and privileges.

Caste is one among many instances of the peculiar exaggerations in which the Hindu mind loves to indulge. The social distinctions which prevail in other countries are represented in India by this institution, in which those distinctions are, not altogether illogically, carried to an extreme point. Caste may be modified and rendered less harsh in its general outline; but it will never cease to exist. The Protestant missionaries, of course, declare war to the knife against it, as a system of falsehood and deceit, and an absurdity contrary both to reason and revelation. This may be true, as well as that Brahmins get drunk, and eat asafoetida-cakes in which buffalo flesh forms an ingredient, without losing their caste; but missionary denunciations of caste absurdity, and exposures of Brahminical irregularities, are not likely to make the slightest impression on the minds of a people with whom caste distinctions are hallowed by immemorial usage, and bound up in every act of their lives. The favourite missionary receipt is, therefore, to deprive Brahmins of their Enam or rent-free lands, to induce Government entirely to disavow caste, to put an end to all caste distinctions in jails, and to raise the Pariars and Chucklers from their degradation.[459] A very summary plan no doubt, but as impracticable as it would be impolitic and unjust.

After a most delightful visit at Madura, I started for Trichinopoly late one night, and found the road so execrable in some places, that it was necessary to go off into the fields, and make a long circuit. The country between Madura and Trichinopoly is chiefly cultivated with dry grain, but there are occasional patches of rice. Ranges of rocky hills intersect the plain, covered with underwood and low trees, which the natives are allowed to use for firewood, but, when they carry it off for sale, in cart-loads, there is a small duty. I walked most of the distance under the shade of the peepul and banyan-trees which line the road, and reached Trichinopoly after a journey of a day and two nights.

Trichinopoly is a large military station, and the European houses, therefore, are very numerous, and occupy a considerable space, as they are generally surrounded by large parks or compounds. A bridge over a small tributary of the Cauvery leads to the bazar and native town; and the view from the bridge is very pretty, with cocoanut-trees and bushes coming down to the water's edge, and houses embosomed in trees, whence flights of steps lead down into the water. Beyond the bridge there is a picturesque mosque of white stone, and the bazar, a long street leading to the principal part of the town, in the centre of which the famous rock of Trichinopoly rises up abruptly. Brahmins and other traders were sitting in their shops, before piles of earthenware and copper chatties, cotton cloths, and numerous kinds of grains and pulses in baskets. The rock is a mass of granite, 400 feet high, crowned by a small Hindu temple; the ascent is cut in steps out of the solid rock, and from the summit there is a most extensive view, including the city, the fine bridges over the Coleroon and Cauvery, the gopurams of the great pagoda of Seringam on an island in the river, and a vast expanse of rice cultivation and palm-groves, with Tanjore on the distant horizon. The native town contains several large handsome houses belonging to Mohammedans, and the ruins of the palace of the Nawabs of the Carnatic.

Through the kindness of Mr. McDonnell, the Collector, I was enabled to pass a very interesting day at the Upper Coleroon anicut. Passing the base of the rock of Trichinopoly, and following the main street of the native town, the banks of the river Cauvery are reached, where there are rows of stone temples and houses with open corridors, whence flights of steps lead down into the water. Near the river there is a tank filled with red and white lotus-flowers. A handsome stone bridge spans the Cauvery, and another of equal length crosses the Coleroon, about a mile further on. The two rivers form an island, and unite a few miles lower down; and the upper anicut is about fourteen miles up the river, where Mr. McDonnell had a comfortable bungalow on the banks, shaded by lofty trees.

The Upper Coleroon anicut or weir is constructed at the west end of the island of Seringam, which is formed by the separation of the Cauvery into two branches, namely the Coleroon on the north, and the Cauvery on the south. Formerly the bed of the Coleroon was continually deepening, while that of the Cauvery was rising, so that there was much difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply of water for the irrigation of the rice-fields of Tanjore. The upper anicut, commenced by Colonel Cotton in 1836, and finished in 1850, completely answered the purpose of deepening the bed of the Cauvery, so much so that another weir was made across that river, sixty miles lower down; and by means of the second weir, made in 1845, and the under sluices in the upper one, the water is now effectually kept under command.[460] The upper anicut, which I visited, is broken into three parts by two small islands. The south part is 282 yards long, the centre 350, and the north 122, the whole length, including the islands, being 874, and without them 754 yards. The weir is a plain brick wall, plastered with chunam, six feet thick, and seven feet high, the top being lined with masonry. It is defended from the overfall by masses of rough stone; and there are twenty-four sluices, which prevent accumulations of sand from forming above the anicut. The sluices are connected by a narrow bridge of sixty-two arches, to secure access to them during floods, and it also serves as a means of communication between the banks for foot passengers. The cost of the work, and of repairs between 1836 and 1850, was two lacs of rupees, and it assists the irrigation of 600,000 acres, yielding a revenue of 400,000l., or equal to two-thirds of that of the whole island of Ceylon.

By means of these anicuts the fertile province of Tanjore is converted into one vast rice-field,[461] and the portion of Trichinopoly below the upper weir is equally rich. The country to the north of the road between the anicut and the town of Trichinopoly was a wide expanse of bright green rice cultivation, stretching to the horizon. In Southern India there are two annual crops of rice, called the caar and the soombah or peshanum crops. The former is reaped in October and is reckoned inferior, and the latter in February and March. Two crops in the year from the same land do not yield much more than a single crop, but, owing to the liability of the seasons to fail, the cultivators rear as much as possible for the first crop. This is reaped in the rainy season, when the straw cannot be preserved, so that the second crop must necessarily be sown, for fodder for cattle. Rice requires rain to ensure the full development of the grain, as well as irrigation. The seed is sown thick, and then transplanted to the fields about forty days afterwards; and the fields must be constantly supplied with water. The stalks when cut are stacked for a few days, and the grain is then thrashed out by manual labour or cattle, the husk being separated from the grain with a rice-stamper, generally beaten by women. In the interval of sowing, the natives often sow the land with pulse or sesame, the stubble of which is used as manure for the next rice-crop.

At intervals scattered over the plain, there are groves of cocoanut and palmyra-palms, like islands in the vast sea of rice-fields, with small villages built under their shade. As the betel-nut palm is the most graceful in India, so the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis) is undoubtedly the ugliest, with its black stem the same size all the way up, and coarse fan-shaped leaves. It is chiefly from this tree that the Shanars draw the toddy. The spadix or young flowering branch is cut off near the top, and an earthenware chatty is tied on the stump, into which the juice flows. Every morning it is emptied and replaced, the stump being cut afresh, and so on until the whole is exhausted. Sugar is also extracted by the same process, the inside of the chatty being powdered with lime to prevent fermentation, and the juice being boiled down and dried. The sugar thus obtained is called jaggery. The timber of the palmyra-palm is extensively used for building.

As we drove towards Trichinopoly, with these rice-fields studded with palm-groves on our right, the tall towers of Seringam[462] appeared rising above the trees which border the waters of the Cauvery; and near the town there are large plantain-groves. In leaving Trichinopoly on the road to the Neilgherries it is necessary to cross a small affluent of the Cauvery in ferry-boats. Those for foot-passengers are of wicker covered with hides, and perfectly round, like those which are described by Herodotus, and are still used on the Tigris and Euphrates. After jolting all night through endless groves of banyan and peepul trees, I reached Caroor,[463] the ancient capital of the Chira Rajahs, the following morning. The Chira state, in the days of its prosperity, extended over Coimbatore, and part of Mysore and Malabar. Caroor is a town of some size, in the middle of a plain, through which flows the river Amaravati, a tributary of the Cauvery. Mr. Roberts, the Sub-Collector, was living in a curious upper story, on the top of a pagoda, the entrance to which leads under a tall brick gopuram, 86 feet high, 64 feet long at the base, and 52 feet broad, sculptured with images exactly on the pattern of those at Madura. The country between Caroor and the foot of the Neilgherries is flat and uninteresting, chiefly cultivated with cholum, cumboo, cotton, and a few pulses, with rice in some places. The road is execrable, and generally lined with banyan-trees, which, though affording pleasant shade, are ungainly and ugly, owing to the numerous bunches of dusty-looking roots, which hang in all directions from the branches. On arriving at Matepoliem I found a pony waiting, and, riding up the Coonoor ghaut, returned to Ootacamund. Half-way up the ghaut, at a place called Burlear, Mr. Thomas, the Collector of Coimbatore, has a small but interesting garden, containing all kinds of spices, cacao, coffee and tea plants, besides oranges, lemons, and citrons.

During my tour through the principal Tamil districts I was chiefly struck with the evidences, furnished by the pagodas of Madura and Seringam, and the works of Tirumalla Naik, of the great surplus revenue which was once derived from the land. By the execution of additional public works, the improvement of means of communication, and judicious reductions of the land-tax, which will induce the ryots to bring more waste land under cultivation, much has been effected, but much still remains to be done, before the country attains the same degree of prosperity which it appears to have enjoyed in the best days of the Pandyan and Naik dynasties. Tanjore has probably already reached the highest state of profitable rice cultivation, through the irrigation supplied by the Coleroon anicuts. But much may yet be done with regard to the encouragement of the growth of cotton in Coimbatore, Madura, and Tinnevelly; and hereafter the coffee and chinchona plantations of the Neilgherry hills, the Pulneys, and the Anamallays will supply another important source of wealth and prosperity.

To the north of the Cauvery, in the district of Salem, there is a range of isolated hills, called the Shervaroys, which rise, a few miles north-east of the town of Salem, into a mass of densely wooded flat-topped hills. The mean height of the table-land of the Shervaroys, on their summits, is 4600 feet, and the highest peak rises to 5260 feet. In the Salem district the south-west monsoon sets in early in June, and showers continue till September; and in the end of October the north-east monsoon brings a return of rain from the opposite quarter, which continues until December, when the rains cease, owing to the change of wind from north-east to due north. There are several coffee estates on the Shervaroy hills, but they are considered to be too dry, and, although the coffee produced is said to be of excellent quality, yet the yield is small, and I was told that the Shervaroy plantations were generally losing concerns. The land-tax on these estates is one rupee an acre. Between December and June it is exceedingly dry, and I, therefore, did not consider it advisable to try the experiment of chinchona cultivation on the Shervaroys during the first or second years. If the plants are hereafter found to be capable of enduring longer droughts than we at present expect, they may then be tried on the Shervaroys.

For the same reason I gave up all idea of the hills near Courtallum, in Tinnevelly. At Courtallum, notwithstanding the perennial humidity, the rainfall is only 40 inches, though on the surrounding hills it is probably greater.[464] The elevation of those hills, however, is not sufficient for the profitable cultivation of most species of chinchona-plants. Tinnevelly is sheltered from the south-west monsoon by the Travancore mountains, and from the north-east monsoon by the Serumullay hills, 3500 feet high, which rise from the Madura plains near Dindigul, and by the island of Ceylon to the east. This extreme south part of the peninsula, between latitude 8° and 10° north, therefore receives little moisture, and has a hot arid climate, resembling Egypt, and producing senna and Indian cotton of the best quality.[465] It is possible, however, that localities may hereafter be found, where the chinchona species suited to comparatively low elevations might flourish, such as C. succirubra and C. micrantha, on the mountains dividing Tinnevelly from Travancore.