Life in India/The Neilgherries
The Neilgherries.
It was hard for us to realize, on rising the day after our arrival at Ootacamund, that we were still in India; and that from the peak just over against our window we could look down upon the burning plains over which we had so wearily made our way. Two good blankets were on the bed, and a carpet on the floor; a wood-fire was burning in the grate, and there, too, was a chimney, (a thing unknown below,) with tongs and wheezing bellows, and close-shutting glass windows.
On going into the fresh, cool morning air, a strange luxury to the lungs, we found ourselves in front of a pretty residence on the summit of an elevation which sloped gently down to a little lake embosomed amid hills, and winding among their almost meeting bases. Along its margin ran a good red road; and neat houses, white-walled and red-roofed, were dotted here and there on the sides and levelled tops of the hills. Across the lake, on a prominent elevation, stood a village church; and behind it a high ridge bounded the view, and formed a fine background to the scene. It would have been easy to have imagined, if we had faith in the Arabian tales, that we had seated ourselves upon a magic rug, and had been transported from sultry India, the land of the palm-tree and the banana, to some sweet spot in the Scottish Highlands. We were, however, still in India—the land not of sultry plains alone, but also of noble mountains.
The Neilgherry Hills are a range of mountains in Southern India, with a base two hundred miles in circumference, lying between the two ranges known as the Eastern and Western Ghauts. Though separate from both, they form a connecting link between the two, as they approach each other towards the termination of the peninsula. A deep jungle stretches on every side around the base of the mountains, giving a home to all the savage beasts of Indian forests, and rendered almost uninhabitable by a deadly miasm.
From out of this vast wilderness the mountains rise in an irregular square to the height of eight thousand feet. On gaining the summit of the Seegoor Pass, the traveller finds before him an elevated table-land, rather than a mountain-top, broken in every direction by hills, ridges, and valleys, sinking sometimes to an altitude of six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and in the highest peak rising to near nine thousand feet. Raised above all other mountains south of the Himalayas, their summits are seen in every direction clothed in the blue of the surrounding atmosphere; hence their name of Nilagiri, nila (pronounced neela) meaning blue; and giri, (girrey,) mountain. By the English they are known as the “Neilgherry Hills."
The English for years had possession of Coimbatoor and Mysore, the provinces below the mountains, without suspecting the existence of the fair and healthful retreat that lay upon their blue tops. It was known, however, that tobacco was smuggled from the district of Coimbatoor across the range to the western coast, and that there must be a passable way over the hills. About thirty years since, two revenue officers resolved to follow these smugglers to their haunts. Climbing, with the help of guides, the steep and rugged path by which alone the mountains were then scaled, they at last reached the summit, and found, to their amazement and delight, a lovely country of hill and dale, pasture, woodland, and cultivated fields, spreading for miles before them. Invigorated by the cool air, and captivated with the scene, they reported the discovery in brilliant colours, and pioneered their countrymen to this truly charming retreat from the heat of the plains below.
While these mountains perform a most important part in the physical economy of Southern India, condensing into rain the watery vapours borne upon the two periodical winds called monsoons from the seas of Arabia and Bengal, and sending them in streams to water the lowlands, they also seem in a remarkable way to have been built by God as a health-retreat for invalids languishing under a tropical sun. Here, within three hours' ride of the intense heat of the torrid zone, you enjoy a climate delightfully mild and agreeable, though from its peculiarity not equal to that of the temperatè zone. The mornings and evenings are always cool, nor at mid-day does the thermometer rise above 70° in the shade. The direct rays of the sun at noon are powerful; but when out of these direct rays, you are always cool. In January and February a slight coating of ice is found upon the ponds in the morning, and in the warmest season woollen clothes are not laid aside.
The total change of the vegetation from that of the plains adds to the charm of the place. Instead of the cocoanut, date, and mango, you have in the ravines dense forests of trees allied, not to those of the torrid, but to those of the temperate zone; and in place of the oleander and the lotus and other flowers of the plains, you find hill-sides dotted all over with anemonies and buttercups; and gather violets, honey-suckles, and dog-roses under the shade of homelike forest-trees.
Ootacamund, the chief English station on the hills, lies in a hilly basin near the centre of this mountain-land, and has about two hundred houses for English residents. Some families remain here permanently; the greater part are sojourners, in search of health and invigoration. A few good roads furnish drives, while a multitude of bridle-paths cross the hills, and permit you to ride to many points of interest; but the change of climate allows you once more to use your limbs freely, and to walk for miles at a time among scenes beautiful, novel, and often grand.