Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/540

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CONOOR.

the mark of Hindu surgery, a large branded wheel, a specific for all internal ailments.

Our road took us through a beautiful dell, where we noticed on a single tree some seven or eight honeycombs hanging from its boughs in semicircular masses, each not less than three feet in diameter. The wild bees, though robbed of their stores both by the hill-tribes and bears, (for Master Bruin is a lover of honey in India as well as America,) find a profusion of flowers spread for them from which to repair their losses. Emerging from Love-dale, as this valley has been named by the English residents, we ascended a steep hill, and gaining the top of the Kaytee Pass, began our descent through the Kaytee Valley to Conoor, twelve miles distant. The road, sometimes steep, sometimes quite level, and sometimes gently sloping, leads you through cultivated fields and Badaga villages to a point sixteen hundred feet lower than Ootacamund. Being thus at a less elevation, Conoor has a milder climate, and is chosen as a residence by those who prefer a less sudden change from the heat of the plains. A dozen English houses are scattered over the hills at the head of the pass leading to Coimbatoor. The spot is one of great beauty, and commands