Report on the medical topography and statistics of Neilgherry Hills / Compiled from the records of the Medical Board Office.

  • Madras State
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the medical topography and statistics of Neilgherry Hills / Compiled from the records of the Medical Board Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ing scene” to use an expression of Coleridge, resembling the billows of the sea suddenly stilled, solidified and fixed, while in their full carreer of heaving commotion. This is more applicable to the lower hills, mammillons to use the expressive term of a French author, but many upwards of a thousand feet high, have the same rounded contour. The valleys or ravines at the foot of these hills, are uniformly wet, sometimes having a rivulet running through them, but more often being marshy, their being no exit to admit of drainage. From these moist places commence the beautiful clusters of wood, called sholahs, which form a peculiarly striking feature in the scenery. They stretch along the clefts and gorges of the hills, extending on either side in a defined line, over the mountain slopes, and often leaving an interval of green sward, which conveys the idea of an artificial plantation, rather than the wild arrangement of unassisted nature. Sometimes these woods clothe the whole of a hill side, or of several neigh- bouring hills; frequently picturesque clumps of trees are to be seen, isolated, and having the singularly defined outline mentioned above; or they are continued along in the clefts, hollows and gorges, of the mountain side. Scenery such as this must exhilarate the mind, and thus favorably affect the constitution of invalids. In a description of the hills an account of the Ghauts or ap- : : 77 roaches to the approaches is essentially necessary, as the health both of the traveller and invalid, may suffer from ignorance thereof, miasm in its most deadly form, being pro- duced in the thick jungles around their base; and as these must be traversed, the danger requires to be guarded against, lives having been lost, from delays, and from passing the night in feverish localites. There are several passes leading to the hills, only two of which are practicable for carts, viz: those of Seegoor and Coo- Seegoor ghaut. noor—'The Seegoor pass is the shortest and easiest of ascent—It commences at Goondelpett in Mysore, at a