312 NILGIRI HILLS. Their villages are termed mutta, and are generally located at an elevation of 2000 or 3000 feet, in mountain clefts, glens, or forests. A Kurumba house is one long apartment, extending from 30 to 50 feet in length, scarcely 5 feet high, loosely and scantily thatched, walled around by brushwood or bamboo plaitings, and divided by the same into several apartments, each not exceeding 8 or 10 feet square. There is neither door nor door-frame, but the huts are shut at nights by placing plaitings of bamboo or brushwood against the opening. Their language is a corrupt Tamil. The various grains, chillies, Indian corn, yams, and some of the commonest vegetables are grown by them in small quantities; but, as a rule, they do not cultivate. They have a very vague form of religious belief, but they worship many natural objects. Those Kurumbas, who live on the hills, officiate as priests to the Badagas. They are a superstitious race; and while they keep all the other tribes of these hills in awe, they themselves fear the Todas.' Besides cultivating on a small scale, they collect in the jungles several kinds of grain, fruits, soap-nuts, myrobalans, dye - barks, shed deer - horns, mouse - deer, squirrels, tortoises, fish, medicinal herbs, roots, honey, and beeswax, which they barter on the plains for grain and cloth. A gang of them are employed on the Government cinchona plantations at Neddiwattam, and some few have been met with in the coffee estates near Kotagiri and Gúdalúr. The Kurumbas on the Nilgiri Hills numbered 613 in 1871, and 3185 in 1881. The Irulas (or 'benighted ones,' from the Tamil word iral, darkness') live on the lowest slopes and forests extending from the base of the Nilgiris to the plains, and are not, strictly speaking, inhabitants of the hills, nor are they recognised as such by the other tribes. They are tolerably good-looking, very much superior in physique to the Kurumbas, and in some respects even to the Kotas. The women are strong and stoutly built, anything but prepossessing in appearance, and very dark skinned. The men wear no clothing but a languti or waistband in their own homes; but when working on the plantations, they wear cloths like other natives. The women wear a double fold of wrapper cloth, which extends from the waist to the knees; the upper part of their bodies with their bosoms, are nude. They are fond of ornaments, and wear strings of red and white beads about their necks, thin wire bracelets and armlets, with ear and nose rings.' They are an idle and dissolute tribe, although in physique well adapted to hard manual labour. They use animal food of every description, and are expert huntsmen. Their language is a rough Tamil, with many Kanarese and Malayalam words. The Irulas on the Nilgiri Hills numbered 1400 in 1871, and 946 in 1881. With the exception of the Irulas and Kurumbas, who, owing to their
