Harkness, Henry: A description of a singular aboriginal race inhabiting the summit of the Neilgherry Hills, or Blue Mountains of Coimbatoor, in the Southern Peninsula of India (London, 1832)

4 SCENERY.

extensive range, occupying nearly the centre of the crest,
and partaking of almost every description of site, of an
alternate succession of hill and dale, mountain and val-
ley, with little of what may be correctly called Table
Land. To the east, and north-east, it is bounded by
mountains, rising high above its level; and above these
again is seen towering the still more lofty and majestic
Petmarz, or, as it is more generally called, Dodabetta,*
the highest point of the hills. In other directions,
the settlement is bounded by heights of less elevation,
by which its limits are seemingly prescribed.

On entering Oatacamund from the north-west, or by

the main road leading from the Mysore country, the

opposite mountains, alluded to above, are in the highest

degree beautiful and picturesque, forming a majestic and

. extended amphitheatre.

At their base, and on the lesser hills and knolls in
their vicinity, a number of pretty white buildings give
relief to the rich verdure ; above these, and in the clefts
which partially separate mountain from mountain, shoot
up lofty and umbrageous trees, appearing at this dis-
tance to form little impervious forests ; and beyond these,

* The peak before alluded to, from doda great, and hetta, a bill or
mountain, in the Carnataca language ; and therefore so called by the
Burghers, another tribe of the inhabitants of the hills, who speak this
language, and from whom we have taken it up. Pet, or Hetmarz, is the
name by which the Tudas call this mountain.