DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5829#0230
204
TIIE ORIENTAL ANNUAL.
when three or four days old, and he will see, upon
her unequal disk, the very spot from which the Neil-
gherries were cut off. The horns are seen to project
beyond the unilrumined portion of the sphere, exhibit-
ing what the English peasant calls " the old moon in
the new moon's arms," and this imperfect part of the
circumference is that whence came the Neilghcrries.
If the philosopher endeavour to explain the optical
illusion, the Koimbatoori listens politely to the end of
his exposition, and then tells him that his argument
must go for nothing, since he himself must have
been convinced, even though unconverted, by the
more simple and comprehensible tale of Ram and
Ravana.
The Neilgberries are inhabited by three distinct
races, who call themselves aborigines ; the Kotas,
the Bursas, and the Thodas. These several tribes
hold themselves entirely apart, the one from the
other, except as the Burgas are tenants of the
Thodas, in whom is the right of soil. They appear
to emulate dissimilitude in all things, although
apparently free from jealousy or aversion. Their
abodes, their laws, their language, their religion (if
a faint notion of a supreme Power may be so called),
their habits and pursuits, their costume, their very
persons, are almost as dissimilar as it would be
possible to make them. The Kotas, forming about
a tenth part of the whole population, are a wretched,
insignificant, degraded race ; unsightly in person,
TIIE ORIENTAL ANNUAL.
when three or four days old, and he will see, upon
her unequal disk, the very spot from which the Neil-
gherries were cut off. The horns are seen to project
beyond the unilrumined portion of the sphere, exhibit-
ing what the English peasant calls " the old moon in
the new moon's arms," and this imperfect part of the
circumference is that whence came the Neilghcrries.
If the philosopher endeavour to explain the optical
illusion, the Koimbatoori listens politely to the end of
his exposition, and then tells him that his argument
must go for nothing, since he himself must have
been convinced, even though unconverted, by the
more simple and comprehensible tale of Ram and
Ravana.
The Neilgberries are inhabited by three distinct
races, who call themselves aborigines ; the Kotas,
the Bursas, and the Thodas. These several tribes
hold themselves entirely apart, the one from the
other, except as the Burgas are tenants of the
Thodas, in whom is the right of soil. They appear
to emulate dissimilitude in all things, although
apparently free from jealousy or aversion. Their
abodes, their laws, their language, their religion (if
a faint notion of a supreme Power may be so called),
their habits and pursuits, their costume, their very
persons, are almost as dissimilar as it would be
possible to make them. The Kotas, forming about
a tenth part of the whole population, are a wretched,
insignificant, degraded race ; unsightly in person,