MYSORE AND COORG.

Seegoor ghaut—Sandal-wood—Mysore—Seringapatam—Hoonsoor—The tannery—Fraserpett—Mercara—The fort—The Rajahs of Coorg—The Coorgs—Origin of the river Cauvery—Coorg—Climate—Coffee cultivation—Sites for chinchona-plantations—Caryota Urens—Virarajendrapett—Cardamom cultivation—Kumari—Poon, blackwood, and teak—Pepper cultivation in Malabar—Cannanore—Nuggur and Baba Bodeen hills—The Beebee of Cannanore—Compta—Sedashighur—Arrive at Bombay.

The descent from the plateau of the Neilgherries to the plains of Mysore on the north, is by the Seegoor ghaut, the only one which is practicable for carriages. It is much tamer, and not to be compared with those of Sispara or Coonoor; and at the foot there is a wide belt of thin, stunted, pestiferous jungle, twenty-five miles in breadth, through which the river Moyaar flows to join the Bowany. There are a great many young teak-trees, and sandal-wood is also found, in the forests on the inner or eastern slopes of the ghauts; but all the timber looked poor and stunted.[466] The sandal-wood tree (Santalum album) is about twenty feet high, with numerous spreading branches, and small purplish flowers. Dr. Cleghorn reports that with vigilant supervision, and slight assistance to nature in clearing the heads of young plants, which are often matted down by creepers, an addition might accrue to the revenue of several districts in the Madras Presidency by the sale of sandal-wood. The export trade in sandal-wood and oil is even now very considerable. The road from the foot of the Seegoor ghaut to Mysore, a distance of sixty-four miles, is excellent, and there is a very good bridge over the river Moyaar. We passed the night at the half-way bungalow of Goondulpett, whence there is a grand view, with scattered date-palms in the foreground, a vast expanse of undulating plain beyond, bounded by the belt of forest, with the blue line of the Neilgherries in the distance. There is nothing of interest between Goondulpett and Mysore.

Mysore is on a table-land 2450 feet above the sea. On the western side of the town flows the Purneah canal, which comes from a distance of seventy miles to supply Mysore with water, and was made by the Brahmin minister Purneah, who came into power during the present Rajah's minority, after the death of Tippoo. In approaching the town, the isolated rocky hill of Chamandi is seen on the right. Mysore is fortified, and, after passing under the ramparts, we entered a square, one side of which is occupied by the Rajah's palace. Here, and in the adjoining streets, there was an unusual amount of life and bustle owing to the presence of a native court; and we met crowds of nautch-girls, men in various costumes, elephants, camels, and bullock-carts. Some of the houses have upper stories, but the majority are dark places, with red-tiled roofs extending far over, and forming verandahs.

Mysore is so called from its having been the abode of the buffalo-headed demon Mahesh-asur, who was slain by Parvati, the wife of Siva, in her most hideous and repulsive form, as Cali, the impersonation of vengeance. The country, from 1336 to 1565, formed a part of the Brahminical kingdom of Bijayanuggur; and in 1576 one Raj Wadeyar established his independence as ruler of Mysore, from whom the present Rajah is descended. After the death of Tippoo Sultan, and the capture of Seringapatam by the English in 1799, the present Rajah, then only five years old, was placed on the throne, and the country was ruled by his very clever minister Purneah, until he came of age. He afterwards proved so utterly incompetent to govern, that the country fell into a state of anarchy, and the English therefore undertook the administration in 1832. The Mysore Commission was then formed, with Sir Mark Cubbon at its head, and Mysore was divided into four divisions—Bangalore, Astagram, Nuggur, and Chitteldroog.

The table-land of Mysore covers an area of 30,886 square miles, and contains a population of 3,300,000 souls. Sir Mark Cubbon's administration was vigorous and progressive. In 1832 the revenue was 440,000l., in 1860-61 it was 950,000l., and in the latter year there was an excess of income over expenditure, amounting to 120,000l. The Chief Commissioner has made upwards of 1600 miles of excellent carriage-road, bridged throughout, and has introduced many important measures, while the officers who have worked under him have generally been distinguished for ability and zeal. The good old general was sixty years in India, and governed Mysore from 1832 to 1861. He was adored by all ranks of the people, and his resignation caused universal regret, when, early in 1861, he sailed for England. But he was not destined to see his native land again, he died at Suez, and thus passed away a brave soldier and an enlightened statesman, one who had done as good and valuable service to his country as any English public servant during the present century.

During our stay at Mysore we drove over to Seringapatam, a distance of twelve miles. The immediate neighbourhood of the capital is chiefly planted with dry grains, such as raggee and pulses. The common people live chiefly on raggee, which they store in underground pits. They also use the seeds of gram (Cicer arietinum) in curries and cakes, and the oxalic acid which exudes from every part of the plant serves instead of vinegar for their curries. The roads round Mysore are lined with hedges of American aloe. After the first few miles, we began to pass through groves of cocoanut and betel-palms,[467] much rice cultivation, and fields of sugar-cane. Close to Seringapatam a sugar manufactory has been established by Mr. Grove, who buys up the jaggery from the ryots and refines it. We crossed the Cauvery by a fine bridge, and saw the great canal constructed by Tippoo for irrigating the rice-fields. There are large ruinous houses and temples, embowered in palm-trees, with flights of steps down to the river, outside the old town itself, which is surrounded by a wall and ditch.

We first drove to the tomb under which Hyder Ali and Tippoo are buried. It is in the middle of a garden called the Lal-bagh, with a pretty avenue of cocoanut and betel-palms leading up to it. The tomb is a square building, surmounted by a dome, with minarets at the angles, richly decorated with arabesque-work in chunam. It is surrounded by an open corridor, supported by pillars of black hornblende, and in the centre of each side there is a doorway. That facing the avenue is filled in with an open-work screen of the same stone, and the others have double doors richly inlaid with ivory, the gift of Lord Dalhousie. The tombs are placed under the dome, three in number, namely, of Hyder, Tippoo, and Tippoo's mother, each covered over with a pall of crimson silk. The building is surrounded by cloisters, a part being used as a choultry for Moslem travellers, another as a mosque, and another as a school for small boys who learn to read the Koran. Government grants an allowance for keeping the place in repair, and paying Moulvies to serve in the mosque. The effect of the snow-white tomb, richly adorned with arabesque-work, the lance-like minarets, the cloudless sky, and the feathery palm-trees rearing their graceful heads round the building, was exceedingly like a scene in the Arabian Nights. The tomb of Colonel Baillie, who was taken prisoner by Hyder Ali in 1780, is close by, but in a very neglected state.

We then went to the Derya Dowlet-bagh close to the town, which was the favourite summer-palace of Tippoo. It is a very richly ornamented arabesque building, every part being covered with gilding and bright colours, and pictures on the walls representing the repulse of Lally, and the defeat of Colonel Baillie. From this place we went to the town of Seringapatam itself, which is built on an island in the Cauvery, and surrounded by a strong wall and two very deep ditches. Close to the gate is the jumma musjid, or principal mosque, with two tall minarets; and, in one corner, the spot was pointed out where Tippoo was accustomed to pray, entering the mosque by a small side-door. The double ditch is a very formidable defence to the town, but it does not extend along the side facing the river, and it was here that the assault was delivered by the English general. A feint was made in the direction of the Lal-bagh, where the English suffered severely, while the real storming party was formed on the opposite side of the Cauvery, at a spot which is now marked by two upright posts. A bastion facing the river had previously been breached, the four guns on it dismounted, and scarcely any other guns could be brought to bear on the soldiers of the assaulting column at this particular point, who dashed across the Cauvery and up the breach. Tippoo was jammed by the flying crowd in a small doorway, which we saw, where he was killed, and from that day the pestiferous Seringapatam ceased to be the capital of Mysore. The palace, now in ruins, is very like that of the Nawab of the Carnatic at Trichinopoly, a plain rambling building with rows of large windows, and there are extensive gardens round it, full of tamarind-trees, cocoanuts, plantains, and vines.

The old town of Seringapatam is exceedingly interesting, but it now wears an appearance of silent decay and desolation. It is notoriously unhealthy, and the inevitable penalty of a night passed in the town is a severe attack of fever.

From Mysore we took our way, by Hoonsoor, to the hill district of Coorg. The road to Hoonsoor passes over twenty-eight miles of a country very little cultivated, with extensive tracts of waste land, and a few fields of dry grain near the villages. Hoonsoor has for many years been a Government grazing-farm and manufactory. In 1860 the bullocks were all sold off, but there are still thirty-eight fine elephants, and upwards of a hundred camels. We saw the elephants having their breakfasts in a solemn motionless row, large heaps of rice wrapped in bundles of reed being put into their mouths by the mahouts. Besides an establishment of blacksmiths, carpenters, brass-workers, and of women employed in making blankets, there is an extensive Government tannery at Hoonsoor. There are many trees in India well adapted for tanning purposes, but the American sumach (CÆsalpinia coriaria) introduced by Dr. Wallich in 1842, and called by the natives divi-divi, appears to be considered the best at Hoonsoor. The kino-tree (Pterocarpus marsupium) is another, and there are two kinds of catechu used for tanning, one from the betel-nut-palm, and the other from an acacia. To obtain the catechu from the betel-palm the nuts are boiled, and the remaining water is inspissated, and yields the best kind, which is used for the golden coffee-brown colour in dyeing calico, as well as for tanning. From the acacia the catechu is obtained by boiling the unripe pods and old wood. It is not considered so good as kino or divi-divi for tanning purposes, on account of its extreme astringency. The tannery at Hoonsoor is a very extensive establishment, where shoes, sandals, crossbelts, and scabbards are made for the army.

This place suffers frequently and most severely from cholera; and, during these terrible visitations a Swami or God, in the shape of a small stone image of Ganesa seated under a black-wood tree, is specially invoked.

Hoonsoor is 25 miles from Fraserpett, at the foot of the Coorg mountains, and we passed through extensive groves of palm-trees with chatties fastened round the spadices to catch the toddy. Fraserpett is within the Coorg district, and it is in the pleasant little bungalows which have been built here, that the English take refuge during the heavy down-pour of the south-west monsoon. Through the kindness of Captain Martin, a former Superintendent of Coorg, and now engaged in the cultivation of coffee, we found horses waiting for us at Fraserpett, and continued our journey to Mercara, the capital of the district.

After the first two miles the road enters a dense bamboo jungle, extending along the base of the mountains. It was the month of January and the forest was completely dried up and burnt by the sun and want of rain, looking brown and sombre. A splendid white IpomÆa, with a rich lilac centre, was creeping in festoons to the very top of the feathery bamboos which bent gracefully over the road. At a place called Soonticoopah, ten miles from Fraserpett, the ascent of the mountains begins. The road leads up and down a succession of wooded heights, which gradually increase in elevation, with intermediate valleys cultivated with rice and generally fringed with plantain-groves, through which the huts of the Coorgs are visible. At the heads of these valleys the streams are divided into two channels, and led down each side, the space between being sown with rice in terraced fields, gradually descending with the slope of the valley. These bright patches of cultivation are very pretty, with their light vivid green contrasting with the sombre hues of the forest. Near Mercara the jungle is a good deal cleared, and the slopes are covered with coffee-plants. The road is excellent.

Towards evening we came in sight of Mercara, by far the prettiest place I have seen in India. On the opposite side of a deep narrow valley was the fort and palace, built on an eminence overlooking a vast extent of mountainous, forest-covered country. The palace is surrounded by a fortified wall of dark-coloured stone, with semicircular bastions at intervals. On the wall facing us were two square buildings, with a row of long windows, and an overhanging roof, the residence of Captain Eliott, the Superintendent of Coorg; and behind rose up the long edifice forming the old palace, and the white steeple of a modern church. A range of wooded hills, with heavy clouds hanging over them, formed the background. To the right, at a lower elevation were the native town, and two mosque-like buildings, snowy white, with domes, and minarets at the angles, rising up amongst a grove of trees. These are the tombs of the former Rajahs. The narrow gorge below the fort is planted with coffee and plantains, which almost hide the huts that nestle amongst them. In the bottom of the ravine is the principal pagoda of Mercara, built like a mosque, with the tops of the minarets richly gilded. The entrance to the fort is by a steep ascent, leading under a deep gateway in the outer line of fortification, into a courtyard. A second archway leads into a second small court, where there is an elaborately carved pagoda to Ganesa. A third archway opens upon the principal courtyard of the fort, one side of which is occupied by the Rajah's palace, a long barrack-looking building, with an upper story and projecting tiled roof. The officers of a native regiment are quartered in the palace. To the left is the English church, and to the right there is a dark dungeon under the rampart, where the late Rajah kept his prisoners. He used to allow one at a time to run out, and try to escape by the archway, while he picked them off with a rifle from a window of the palace as they ran. There are two full-sized models of favourite elephants, built of brick and chunam, in the courtyard. The huts of the native regiment are clustered in a little valley close under the south wall of the fort.

The palace is entered by an archway, over which there is a balconied window supported by two white horses. The inner court is surrounded by a corridor of stone pillars, with a roof entirely of copper; and in the centre of the court there is a tank paved with stone flags, now dry, with five steps down to it, on two sides, and a carved stone tortoise in the centre.

On the other side of the small valley filled with soldiers' huts, there is a parade-ground, and a small amphitheatre dug out of the solid rock, where elephants and tigers fought for the diversion of the Rajah. Beyond the parade-ground the ridge on which Mercara is built abruptly terminates, and the land sinks down into a wooded valley. Here the late Rajah had built a little brick and chunam summer-house, whence the land descends precipitously to the road leading down the Mangalore ghaut. From this point there is one of the most glorious views to be found in India, and we could sit on the grassy edge of the cliffs for hours, without ceasing to enjoy it. Right and left there is a wide expanse of forest-covered ranges of mountains extending into the blue distance, and in front rises up the mountain of Tadiandamol, the loftiest peak in Coorg. We watched the crimson sunset over the hills, and after dark a spontaneous ignition of the dry grass wound like a serpent along the loftier ridges of the opposite mountains, producing an indescribably beautiful effect in the clear starry night.

Coorg has been a portion of the British dominions since 1834, when the last Rajah was deposed. The old Rajahs were not Coorgs, but Hindu Lingayets, a peculiar sect whose members wear a small god round their necks, in a little silver coffer.[468] The family had certainly reigned in Coorg since 1633; and Dodda Virappa, who died in 1734, fixed the seat of government at Mercara, and was the greatest prince of his family. He repulsed a simultaneous invasion of the Mysore Rajah and the Nairs of Malabar, and afterwards reigned in peace for eighteen years. Hyder Ali invaded and overran the country several times, but in 1788 the young Rajah Viraraja rallied the people round him, disputed every inch of ground against Tippoo's invading army, and made an alliance with the English in Malabar. On the fall of Tippoo a treaty was signed between the East India Company and Viraraja of Coorg, who died in 1807, leaving the country to his favourite daughter Devammaji. His brother Lingaraja, however, usurped the throne. He was a monster of cruelty, and, dying in 1820, was succeeded by his still more brutal son Viraraja, who massacred all his father's friends, together with the poor young princess Devammaji. Her sister, who had married a Coorg, escaped into British territory. It would be too revolting to recount all the atrocities of the last Rajah of Coorg; but at length the patience of Lord William Bentinck was exhausted, and in April 1834 General Fraser entered Mercara, and deposed him. Coorg has since been governed by an English Superintendent, under the orders of the Commissioners of Mysore.

The Kodagas or Coorgs are a tall, muscular, broad-chested, well-favoured race of mountaineers, numbering about 25,000, with a population rapidly increasing since the deposition of the Rajah.[469] They are of Dravidian origin, and speak a dialect of Canarese; but a colony of Brahmins early settled in the country, and endeavoured to mould the traditions of the Coorgs into harmony with their own legends. These are embodied in the Cauvery Purana, where there is a romantic account of the origin of that important river, which rises in the mountains of Coorg.

In the Mahabharata it is related that the amrit or drink of immortality, which had been lost in the waters of the Deluge, was recovered by the Suras and Asuras, gods and demons, by churning the ocean. The Asuras are then said to have stolen it, and it was finally restored to the gods by the maiden Lopamudre, who charmed the Asuras by her beauty. The fair damsel then resolved to become a river, and thus pour herself out in blessings over the earth. But the sage Aghastya, so famous in the history of Madura, was enamoured of her, and she at length so far yielded as to consent to be his wife, on condition that she should be at liberty to forsake him the first time he left her alone. One day he went to a short distance to bathe, when Lopamudre immediately gratified her early longings, by jumping into Aghastya's holy tank, and flowing forth as the river Cauvery. The sage, on his return, ran after her, but the only consolation that was left to him was to explain to his beloved the course she ought to take in flowing towards the eastern sea.

The Cauvery Brahmins, as persons of that caste are called in Coorg, wear the sacred thread, and perform poojah to Amma, the goddess of the river. They number about forty families, but are fast dying out. They are often very rich, and are employed in the pagoda, or as clerks in the Superintendent's office. The Coorgs themselves, the inhabitants of this mountainous district, are divided into thirteen castes.[470] They generally retain the old devil-worship of the Scythic or Dravidian race from which they are descended, and are addicted to the use of charms and sorceries. They marry at a ripe age, but the wives of brothers are considered as common property. All the men wear a silver-mounted dagger, secured round the waist by a silver chain; and the women, who are often very pretty, wear a white cotton cloth round the head, with the ends hanging half-way down the back. The men are an independent, hard-working race, tall, with comparatively fair skins. They are very keen sportsmen, and most of them possess a gun, the boys practising with pellet-bows.

Coorg consists of a succession of lofty wooded ridges and long deep valleys, forty miles broad by sixty long, between lat. 12° and 13° N. It is bounded on the north by the river Hemavati, on the south by the Tambacheri pass, on the west by Malabar and South Canara, and on the east by Mysore. South of Mercara the country appears covered with forest, wave upon wave of wooded mountain ranges rising one behind the other, the highest peak of all having its summit partially bare of trees, and covered with rich herbage. The elevations above the sea are as follows:—

The river Cauvery drains about four-fifths of the surface of Coorg, while about a dozen streams, issuing from the same hill region, traverse Malabar and South Canara. From the end of December to the end of March rain is very scarce, but the valleys are seldom without fogs more or less dense in the evenings and mornings, and heavy dews are frequent. During these months a dry east wind prevails, which has long ceased to carry rain with it from the Bay of Bengal. Towards the end of March clouds begin to collect, and the air grows moister. In April and May there are thunderstorms and frequent showers, with a warm and moist climate. In the end of May the clouds in the western sky grow in strength; and in June rain prevails, descending at times softly, but generally with great violence, accompanied by heavy gusts of westerly wind. In July and August the rain pours down in floods day and night, to such a degree that a flat country would be deluged, but Coorg, after being thoroughly bathed, sends off the water to the east and west by her numerous valleys. The yearly fall of rain often exceeds 160 inches. In September the sun breaks through, in October a north-east wind clears the sky, in November showers fall over Coorg, being the tail of the north-east monsoon, and December is often foggy.[471] The following table will give an idea of the annual temperature of Mercara,[472] the extremes ranging from 52° to 82°, and the average being 60°:—

An immense quantity of rice is cultivated in the Coorg valleys, and largely exported, but scarcely any dry grain is raised. In 1853 the rice harvest was said to have been worth seven lacs of rupees. The Coorgs pay so much on the seed sown, as a land-tax, besides a small house-tax, and the cardamom sales yield about 35,000 Rs.[473]

Coffee cultivation was only commenced in Coorg about six years ago, but its extension both amongst natives and Europeans has since been very remarkable. There are now more than a dozen plantations owned by Europeans, chiefly near the road leading down the ghaut from Mercara to the port of Mangalore, and several thousand acres are already under cultivation. Mr. Mann, the largest proprietor, has upwards of 800 acres planted with coffee-trees. The natives too have shown great enterprise in undertaking a cultivation previously unknown to them, and there is now scarcely a hut to be seen without its little coffee-garden. All the plantations on the eastern side of Mercara, excepting one, belong to natives; and close to the town I observed a small clearing where a Coorg was hard at work building himself a hut, cutting away the jungle, leading a small stream into new channels for purposes of irrigation, and planting the slopes of two hills with coffee.

An export duty of four annas the maund is levied on coffee in Coorg, which, in 1861, brought in a revenue of 23,000 Rs. In that year 1,29,869 maunds were exported, 1,17,223 by native growers, and 12,645 by Europeans. This disproportion will not exist this year, as the plants on several new estates will now be in bearing for the first time. The main roads in Coorg are excellent, and one at least of the planters, if not more, has displayed great energy in connecting his estates by good roads with the main Government highways. Most of the available land, within reasonable distance of a highway, is already taken up for coffee cultivation. Labour, as is also the case in Wynaad and the Neilgherries, is chiefly procured from Mysore, the coolies coming up after their own work is done.

It will be seen by the account I have been able to give of the elevation, temperature, and of the periods of drought and moisture in this hill district, that it is not nearly so well adapted for the cultivation of chinchona-plants as Neddiwuttum, and many other localities on the Neilgherry hills. It may be compared, more appropriately, with the forests near Sispara on the Koondahs, as it is exposed to the full force of the south-west monsoon, and suffers from a long drought during the winter.

The country to the north and east of Mercara is a plateau, about 4500 feet above the sea, intersected by ravines full of trees and underwood, amongst which I observed wild orange and lime-trees, Michelias, and tree-ferns, with an undergrowth of ferns, Lobelia, IpomÆa, and Solanum. The scenery is charming, with grassy slopes, wooded glades, and here and there a secluded hut in a grove of plantains, on the edge of a small patch of rice cultivation. I also examined some of the forests down the Mangalore ghaut. The road is excellent, winding with a gentle gradient through the beautiful forest scenery past numerous coffee-plantations to their port of shipment at Mangalore. At the fourth milestone from Mercara there is a forest extending for nearly a mile, on the left of the road, at an elevation of 3800 feet above the sea. It descends from the road to the bottom of the ravine, and on the opposite side there are forest-covered heights of greater elevation. The forest contains many tall trees, not growing very close, with tree-ferns, Cinnamomum, Hymenodictyon, MelastomaceÆ, a Papilionacea with a bright yellow flower, and ferns, of which I collected five kinds. The general character of the flora appeared suitable for the growth of chinchona-plants; and, though this was the driest time of the year, I found at least one small stream trickling down through the underwood. The valley runs north-west and south-east.

In this locality plants of C. succirubra would no doubt flourish, and the experiment ought certainly to be tried; though, from the low elevation, the bark would probably be thin, and would yield perhaps a small per-centage of alkaloids. These points, however, can only be ascertained by experience gained from experimental culture. I was told by Captain Eliott, the Superintendent of Coorg, that the forest in question has been applied for and refused to several coffee-planters. The land belongs to Government, but there is a devil living on it, to which the Coorgs do poojah, and the Commissioner of Mysore has, therefore, been hitherto unwilling to allow it to be occupied.

There are many other localities equally suited for the cultivation of C. succirubra and C. micrantha in Coorg; the Government will shortly establish a chinchona nursery there; and, with so many energetic and intelligent planters in the district, it will be strange if the growth of this important product is not extended and rendered profitable by private enterprise. A few rows of chinchona-plants ought to be established in the loftiest part of each coffee-clearing; and every settler should plant them, and encourage the cultivation among the natives, from motives of humanity, as well as with a view to successful commercial speculation.

We finally left Mercara before dawn, and rode for three miles down the steep ghaut leading to the lower and more extensive valleys of south-eastern Coorg, which we reached as the sun rose. It was a very pleasant ride through the beautiful hill country, with uplands covered with fine forest, and long strips of fertile valley. In the jungles we saw immense clumps of bamboo, which overshadowed the road; a leafless and thorny Erythrina with crimson flowers; and a Solanum with a small white flower by the road-side. Here and there we came to open grassy glades, whence little footpaths led through the neighbouring jungle to some secluded hut. The cultivated valleys are covered with rice, and fringed with plantain groves and Caryota urens.

The Caryota urens is a lofty palm-tree, with large leaves, and the Coorgs draw an immense quantity of toddy from it during the hot season. The pith of the trunk of old trees is a kind of sago, and is made into bread and gruel by the natives of many parts of India. Humboldt says that the form of the leaves is very singular, the singularity consisting in their being bipinnatisect, with the ultimate division having the shape of the fin and tail of a fish.[474]

We passed several hundred pack-bullocks conveying Bombay salt from the Malabar ports to the interior, and, having forded the Cauvery at a point where the bed is full of large boulders of rock, reached the village of Virarajendrapett. It consists of two clean streets, at right angles, with a missionary church and school. The mountains are here dotted with plantain-groves, and nearly every house has a small coffee-garden attached. The surrounding country is exceedingly pretty, the view being bounded by forest-covered mountains. The bungalow at Virarajendrapett is on the site of an old palace of the Rajahs, and the compound is surrounded by a high wall, with an ornamental gateway, flanked by stone sentry-boxes.

From this point the descent into Malabar commences, through dense forest, with bright moonlight glancing through the branches of gigantic trees, and after a journey of fifteen miles we reached the bungalow of Ooticully in the middle of the jungle. It is in these forests, on the western slopes of the Coorg mountains, that cardamom cultivation is carried on to a great extent. In February parties of Coorgs start for these western mountains, and, selecting a slope facing west or north, mark one of the largest trees on the steepest declivity. A space about 300 feet long and 40 feet broad is then cleared of brushwood, at the foot of the tree; a platform is rigged about twelve feet up the tree, on which a pair of woodmen stand and hew away right and left until it falls head foremost down the side of the mountain, carrying with it a number of smaller trees in a great crash.

Within three months after the felling, the cardamom-plants in the soil begin to show their heads all over the cleared ground during the first rains of the monsoon, and before the end of the rainy season they grow two or three feet. The ground is then carefully cleared of weeds, and left to itself for a year. In October, twenty months after the felling of the great tree, the cardamom-plants are the height of a man, and the ground is again carefully and thoroughly cleared. In the following April the low fruit-bearing branches shoot forth, and are soon covered with clusters of flowers, and afterwards with capsules. Five months afterwards, in October, the first crop is gathered, and a full harvest is collected in the following year. The harvests continue for six or seven years, when they begin to fail, and another large tree must be cut down in some other locality, so as to let the light in upon a new crop.

The harvest takes place in October, when the grass is very high and sharp, sorely cutting the hands, feet, and faces of the people. It is also covered with innumerable large greedy leeches. The cultivators pick the cardamom capsules from the branches, and convey them to a temporary hut, where the women fill the bags with cardamoms, and carry them home, sometimes to distances of ten or twelve miles. Some families will gather 20 to 30 maunds annually, worth from 600 to 1000 Rs.[475]

This method of cardamom cultivation must be considered injurious to the conservancy of fine timber in the forests, but, on the other hand, the crops themselves are very valuable, and bring in a considerable revenue. But there is another kind of cultivation carried on in these vast forests on the western slopes of the ghauts, which is far more prejudicial to the production of valuable timber-trees. This is called kumari, and punam in Malabar. It has been altogether prohibited in Coorg and Mysore, while in Canara it is not now allowed within nine miles of the sea, or three of any navigable river, or in any of the Government forests without previous permission. But in Malabar, where all the forests are private property, the Government is unable to interfere in the matter, and kumari is quite unrestricted.

Kumari is cultivation carried on in forest-clearings. A space is cleared on a hill-slope at the end of the year; the wood is left to dry until March or April, and then burnt. The seed, generally raggee (Eleusine coracana), is sown in the ashes on the fall of the first rain, the ground not being touched with any implement, but merely weeded and fenced. The produce is reaped at the end of the year, and is said to be worth double that which could be procured under ordinary modes of cultivation. A small crop is taken in the second, and perhaps in the third year, and the spot is then deserted and allowed to grow up with jungle. The same spot is cultivated again after 10 or 12 years in Malabar, but in North Canara the wild hill tribes generally clear patches in the virgin forest. Dr. Cleghorn reports that kumari renders the land unfit for coffee-cultivation, destroys valuable timber, and makes the locality unhealthy, dense underwood being substituted in the abandoned clearings for tall trees under which the air circulated freely.[476] The Kurumbers and Irulas, wild tribes of the Neilgherries, also raise small crops by burning patches of jungle and scattering seeds over the ashes. This system, which sounds so wasteful and is so injurious to the yield of timber in the forests, is exceedingly profitable to the cultivator, who has no expenses beyond the payment of land-tax, which in these wild unfrequented spots is often evaded. A common profit is 18 to 28 Rs. an acre.

After leaving Ooticully we still had to pass through fifteen miles of jungle, before reaching the open cultivated country in northern Malabar. In driving down the ghaut the views, through occasional openings, of the wide expanses of forest were very grand. Tall trunks of trees towered up to a great height in search of light and air, palms and bamboos waved gracefully over the road, and the range of Coorg mountains filled up the background. Most of the valuable timber has been long since felled in these forests, excepting in the very inaccessible parts. The poon-trees (Calophyllum angustifolium),[477] which are chiefly found in Coorg, and yield most valuable spars for masts, have become exceedingly scarce. The young trees are now vigilantly preserved. Black-wood (Dalbergia latifolia) is also getting scarce, though I saw a good deal of it in some of the Coorg jungles; and teak-trees of any size have almost entirely disappeared, excepting in the forests of North Canara.

At a distance of twenty miles from the sea the cultivated country commences in this part of Malabar, and the road on each side is lined with pepper-fields, with occasional groves of plantains and clumps of cocoa and betel-nut palms. The land undulates in a succession of hills and dales, with rice cultivation in some of the hollows. Here the pepper is regularly grown in large fields, and not in gardens as at Calicut. In the first place trees are planted in rows, usually such as have rough or prickly bark—the jack, the mango, or the cashew-nut. In the country we were passing through the tree used was an Erythrina, with the bark of trunk and branches thickly covered with thorns. Until the trees have grown to the proper size the land is often used for raising plantains. When the trees have attained a height of 15 or 20 feet, the pepper is planted at their bases, and soon thickly covers the stem and festoons over the branches. The pepper-cuttings or suckers are put down by the commencement of the rains in June, and in five years the vine begins to bear. Each vine bears 500 to 700 bunches, which yield about 8 or 10 seers when dried. During its growth it is necessary to remove all suckers, and the vine is pruned, thinned, and kept clear of weeds. The vine bears for thirty years, but every ten years the old stem is cut down and layers are trained. It is an exceedingly pretty cultivation, and, if it was not for the crests of straggling branches which crown the vine-covered trunks, it would not be unlike the hop-fields of Kent.

The houses on the road were built of laterite, large and comfortable like those at Calicut. We saw the people sitting before their doors, busy with their heaps of pepper. When the berries have been gathered they are dried in the sun on mats, and turn from red to black. The white pepper is from the same plant, the fruit being freed from the outer skin by macerating the ripe berries in water. Before reaching Cannanore we passed over three or four miles of elevated rocky land, without cultivation, and arrived in the cantonment late at night.

In enumerating the localities where it is likely that chinchona-plants will thrive, the mountainous country in Mysore, north of Coorg, including Nuggur and the Baba-Bodeen hills, must not be forgotten. Nuggur consists of rounded hills, from 4000 to 5000 feet above the sea, with peaks rising as high as 6000; and the adjoining Baba-Bodeen hills attain a height of 5700 feet. The climate is exceedingly moist, and at the town of Nuggur, on the western side of the hills, the rains last for nine months, during six of which they are so heavy that the inhabitants cannot leave their houses. The eastern side is drier and more level. North of Nuggur the chain of western ghauts sinks down far below the chinchona zone, and north of 14° they scarcely rise above the plain of Dharwar.[478]

There are several profitable coffee plantations in Nuggur, and I understand that it is in contemplation to establish a teak plantation in that district. Though, as a locality for chinchona cultivation, it is not to be compared with the Neilgherries or Pulneys, or even with Coorg, still it is probable that some of the hardier species might thrive there, and thus the area of the chinchona-plants would be eventually extended from Nuggur, in 14° N., to the hills near Courtallum, in the extreme end of the peninsula.

We embarked at Cannanore on board a little steamer for Bombay. The view from the sea is pretty. On the left is an old fort built long ago by the Dutch; in the centre, looking from the anchorage, is a sandy beach, where elephants were being loaded with the luggage of a detachment of troops just arrived from Calicut; and a little to the right is the native town surrounded by extensive groves of cocoanut-trees, with the blue line of the Coorg and Wynaad mountains visible in the distance. There are three very large buildings on the sea-shore, one of which is the palace of the Beebee, a long house, with the ground-floor let out as a pepper warehouse.

The Portuguese built a fort at Cannanore in 1505. They were driven out by the Dutch, who sold the place to a Moplah, from whom the present Beebee of Cannanore is descended, the succession going in the female line. She is much in debt, but owns the Laccadive islands, as well as Cannanore, and the land round the town. We were told that the Beebee considered that she had been shamefully treated by the English Government, and that she spoke her mind very freely on the subject. It appears that, in about 1545, the Laccadive islands were conferred in jagheer on the head of the Moplah caste at Cannanore, the ancestor of the Beebee, by the Rajah of Cherikul, on the payment of a certain tribute, which was duly rendered to the Cherikul family until its destruction by Hyder Ali in the last century. After the storming of Cannanore by the English in 1791, the islands came into possession of the East India Company, and in 1799 they were restored to the Beebee's family, subject to the payment of an annual peshcush of 10,000 Rs.

In April, 1847, a hurricane of unequalled violence swept over the islands, which are only nine feet above the sea in the highest part. The wind tore up the trees by the roots, the waves flooded the land, and almost everything on the two most valuable islands was destroyed. The Beebee borrowed a steamer from the Government to send supplies for the relief of the islanders, and she also obtained a remission of one-third of the peshcush for ten years, on certain conditions connected with reforms in her administration. Her difficulties have chiefly arisen from being unable to pay the sum demanded for arrears of peshcush, and for the use of the steamer, and in 1854 the English Government assumed the administration of the islands until the debt was paid. It was desired that the Beebee should give them up altogether for a pecuniary equivalent, but to this she has resolutely refused to consent. The islands have since been restored to her.[479]

On the day after sailing from Cannanore we put into Mangalore, where the town, like that of Calicut, is completely hidden from the sea, the lighthouse and a few bungalows being visible on a hill in the rear. This was the dry season, and the coast of Canara was not nearly so pretty as that of Malabar, looking parched and dried up. North of Mangalore is the port of Compta, with a lighthouse on a steep conical hill, but no town visible. Compta is now the port of shipment for the cotton of Dharwar, and there were several pattamars in the anchorage, with their decks piled up with bales of cotton. They take it up to Bombay, where it is pressed and shipped for England; and we heard that the crews of the pattamars work their way into the bales, and pull out large handfuls of cotton, filling the space up with filth. In this way there is a petty trade in stolen cotton along the coast, and the people work it up into gloves, stockings, &c., for sale.

Though, at the time of my visit, Compta was used as the cotton-port for Dharwar, yet the port of Sedashighur, further north, has a great advantage over it, and is the only place along the coast where there is safe anchorage during the S.W. monsoon. A point of land, called Carwar head, forms and protects the bay of Carwar and Beitcool cove, and, with the assistance of a breakwater, there would be safe anchorage throughout the year. A line of islands and rocks, called the Oyster rocks, a little to the northward, also offers a place of shelter. There is an anchorage under their lee during the S.W. monsoon, where vessels might ride in perfect safety, and, when a lighthouse is established on the highest Oyster rock, vessels will be able to approach this dangerous coast, and run into the anchorage, during the summer months. Sedashighur is nearer Dharwar than any other port; a river, the Kala-nuddee, navigable for boats for twenty miles, falls into the sea close to the anchorage, and a good road is all that is required to make this place an important port for the shipment of cotton. Energetic measures have already been adopted for this purpose, and it will not be long before Dharwar, the only cotton district in India where the American species has as yet been profitably cultivated, will be supplied with a port where the cotton may be pressed and shipped direct for England.[480]

After passing Sedashighur we put into Goa harbour, and went thence to Vingorla, the port of the Belgaum district, and a great place for the manufacture of earthenware chatties, which are taken up the coast in pattamars. The following day we were at Rutnagherry, and passing Sevendroog, the famous stronghold of the pirate Angria, we concluded our coasting voyage by anchoring in Bombay harbour.