The Ghats. Eastern Western The upheaved southern angle. The cen tral triangular plateau. Passes from the coast; the whole into an empire. They consist of vast masses of forests, ridges, and peaks, broken by cultivated tracts of the rich cotton-bearing black soil, exquisite river valleys, and high-lying grassy plains. The other two sides of the elevated southern triangle are known as the Eastern and Western GHATS. These ranges start southwards from the eastern and western extremities of the Vindhyas, and run along the eastern and western coasts of India. The Eastern Ghats stretch in fragmentary spurs and ridges down the Madras Presidency, receding inland and leaving broad level tracts between their base and the coast. The Western Ghats form the great sea wall of the Bombay Presidency, with a comparatively narrow strip between them and the shore. Some of them rise in magnificent precipices and headlands out of the ocean, and truly look like colossal 'landing-stairs' (gháts) from the sea. The Eastern or Madras Ghats recede upwards to an average elevation of 1500 feet. The Western or Bombay Gháts ascend more abruptly from the sea to an average height of about 3000 feet, with peaks up to 4700, along the coast; rising to 7000 feet and even 8760 feet in the upheaved angle where they unite with the Eastern Gháts, towards their southern extremity. The inner triangular plateau thus enclosed lies from 1000 to 3000 feet above the level of the sea. But it is dotted with peaks and seamed with ranges exceeding 4000 feet in height. Its best known hills are the Nilgiris (Blue Mountains), with the summer capital of Madras, Utakamand, over 7000 feet above the sea. Their highest point is Dodábetta peak, 8760 feet, in the upheaved southern angle. The interior plateau is approached by several famous passes from the level coast-strip on the western side. The Bhor-Ghát, for example, ascends a Bhor-Ghát tremendous ravine about 40 miles south-east of Bombay city, to a height of 2027 feet. In ancient times it was regarded as the key to the Deccan, and could be held by a small band against any army attempting to penetrate from the coast. A celebrated military road was constructed by the British up this pass, and practically gave the command of the interior to the then rising port of Bombay. A railway line has now been carried up the gorge, twisting round the shoulders of mountains, tunnelling through intervening crags, and clinging along narrow ledges to the face of the precipice. At one point the zigzag is so sharp as to render a circuitous turn impossible, and the trains have to stop and reverse their direction on a levelled terrace. The Thall Ghát (1912 feet), to the north THE GHATS AND INNER PLATEAUX. 37 Thall east of Bombay, has in like manner been scaled both by road and the and railway. Another celebrated pass, farther down the coast, Ghát. connects the military centre of Belgaum with the little port of Vengurla. These landing-stairs' from the sea to the interior present scenes of rugged grandeur. The trap rocks stand out, after ages of denudation, like circular fortresses flanked by round Hill forts. towers and crowned with nature's citadels, from the mass of hills behind; natural fastnesses, which in the Maráthá times were rendered impregnable by military art. In the south of Bombay, the passes climb up from the sea through thick forests, the haunt of the tiger and the mighty bison. Still farther down the coast, the western mountain wall dips deep into the Palghát valley-a remarkable gap, 20 miles broad, The Paland leading by an easy route, only 1000 feet in height, from ghát Pass. the seaboard to the interior. A third railway and military road penetrate by this passage from Beypur, and cross the peninsula to Madras. A fourth railway starts inland from the coast at the Portuguese Settlement of Goa. inner On the eastern side of India, the Gháts form a series of The rivers spurs and buttresses for the elevated inner plateau rather of the than a continuous mountain wall. They are traversed by a plateau ; number of broad and easy passages from the Madras coast. Through these openings, the rainfall of the southern half of the inner plateau reaches the sea. The drainage from the northern or Vindhyan edge of the three-sided table-land falls into the Ganges. The Narbadá (Nerbudda) and Tápti carry the rainfall of the southern slopes of the Vindhyas and of the Satpura Hills, by two almost parallel lines, into the Gulf of Cambay. But from Surat, in lat. 21° 28′, to Cape Comorin, in lat. 8° 4′, no great river succeeds in piercing the Western Ghats, no exit or in reaching the Bombay coast from the interior table-land. The Western Ghats form, in fact, a lofty unbroken barrier between the waters of the central plateau and the Indian Ocean. The drainage has therefore to make its way across its drainIndia to the eastwards, now foaming and twisting sharply age eastround projecting ranges, then tumbling down ravines, roaring through rapids, or rushing along valleys, until the rain which the Bombay sea- breeze has dropped on the ridges of the Western Ghats finally falls into the Bay of Bengal. In this way, the three great rivers of the Madras Presidency, viz. the Godávari, the Kistna (Krishna), and the Káveri (Cauvery), rise in the mountains overhanging the Bombay coast, and traverse the whole breadth of the central westwards; wards. and West table-land before they reach the sea on the eastern shores of India. Historical The physical geography and the political destiny of the two significance of sides of the Indian peninsula have been determined by the the Eastern characteristics of the mountain ranges on either coast. On the ern Ghats; east, the Madras country is comparatively open, and was always accessible to the spread of civilisation. On the east, therefore, the ancient dynasties of Southern India fixed their capitals. Along the west, only a narrow strip of lowland intervenes between the barrier range and the Bombay seaboard. This western tract long remained apart from the civilisation of the eastern coast. To our own day, one of its ruling races, the Nairs, retain land tenures and social customs, such as polyandry, which mark a much ruder stage of human advancement than Hinduism, and which in other parts of India only linger among isolated hill tribes. On the other hand, the people and of the of this western or Bombay coast enjoy a bountiful rainfall, unknown in the inner plateau and the east. The monsoon dashes its rain-laden clouds against the Western Gháts, and pours from too to 200 inches of rain upon their maritime slopes from Khandesh down to Malabár. By the time the monsoon has crossed the Western Ghats, it has dropped the greater part of its aqueous burden; and central Districts, such as Bangalore, obtain only about 35 inches. The eastern coast also receives a monsoon of its own; but, except in the neighbourhood of the sea, the rainfall throughout the Madras Presidency is scanty, seldom exceeding 40 inches in the year. The deltas of the three great rivers along the Madras coast form, however, tracts of inexhaustible fertility; and much is done by irrigation to husband and utilize both the local rainfall and the accumulated waters which the rivers bring down. rainfall. The Four The ancient Sanskrit poets speak of Southern India as Forest buried under forests. But much of the forest land has Regions of Southern gradually been denuded by the axe of the cultivator, or in India. consequence of the deterioration produced by unchecked fires and the grazing of innumerable herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. Roughly speaking, Southern India consists of four forest regions-First, the Western Ghats and the plains of the Konkan, Malabár, and Travancore between them and the sea; second, the Karnátik, with the Eastern Gháts, occupying the lands along the Coromandel coast and the outer slopes of the hill ranges behind them; third, the Deccan, comprising the high plateaux of Haidarábád, the Ceded Districts, Mysore, FORESTS OF SOUTHERN INDIA. 39 Coimbatore, and Salem; fourth, the forests of the Northern Western Each of these Districts has its own peculiar vegetation. Forests of That of the first region, or Western Ghats, largely consists of Gháts. virgin forests of huge trees, with an infinite variety of smaller shrubs, epiphytic and parasitic plants, and lianas or tangled creepers which bind together even the giants of the forest. The king of these forests is the teak (Tectona grandis, Linn.). This prince of timber is now found in the greatest abundance in the forests of Kánara, in the Wynád, and in the Anamalai Hills of Coimbatore and Cochin. The pún tree (Calophyllum inophyllum, Linn.) is more especially found in the southernmost forests of Travancore and Tinnevelli, where tall straight stems, fit for the spars and masts of seagoing ships, are procured. The jack fruit (Artocarpus integrifolia, Linn.) and its more common relation the aini (Artocarpus hirsuta, Lam.), furnish a pretty yellow-coloured timber; the blackwood (Dalbergia latifolia, Roxb.) yields huge logs excellent for carved furniture. The Terminalias (T. tomentosa and T. paniculata, W. and A.) with the benteak (Lagerstroemia microcarpa, Wight.) supply strong wood suitable for the well-built houses of the prosperous population of Malabar and Travancore. The dammer tree or Indian copal (Vateria indica, Linn.) yields its useful resin. The ground vegetation supplies one of the most valuable of Indian exports, the cardamom. To enumerate all the important trees and products of the Western Ghats would, however, be impossible. Ghats and In the Karnátik region, the forests rarely consist of large Forests of timber, in consequence of the drier climate and the shorter Eastern monsoon rains. Nor are they of a wide area. Most of the Karnátik. forests consist of what is known as 'Evergreen Scrub,' in which the prominent trees are the Eugenia jambolana, Lam., Mimusops indica, Linn., and the strychnine (Strychnos nux-vomica, Linn.). On the slopes of the hills deciduous forest appears with teak, Terminalias, Anogeissus, and occasional red sanders. Deccan. The Deccan region, which gets a share of both monsoons Forests (namely the monsoon from the south-west from June to Sep- of the tember, and that from the north-east from September to January), has still some large areas covered with fine forest, and yielding good timber. Chief among these areas are the Nallamalai Hills of Karnul, the Pálkonda Hills of Cuddapah, the Collegal Hills of Coimbatore, and the Shevaroy and Javadi ranges of Salem and North Arcot. In the Nallamalai Hills, bijasál (Pterocarpus Marsupium, Roxb.) and sáj (Ter Forests of Madras. the minalia tomentosa, W. and A.) are the prevailing timbers; valuable red sanders-wood (Pterocarpus santalinus, Linn.) has its home in the Pálkonda and adjoining ranges of Cuddapah, while the growth on the hills of Coimbatore includes the precious sandal-wood (Santalum album, Linn.). In the drier country of Bellary and Penukonda, the chief tree is the anjan (Hardwickia binata, Roxb.), furnishing the hardest and heaviest of Indian woods. The fourth forest region is that of the Northern Circars. Northern It stretches from the Kistna river up to the Chilka lake, and includes fine forests of almost untouched sál (Shorea robusta, Gaert.), the iron-wood (Xylia dolabriformis, Benth.), the satinwood (Chloroxylon Swietenia, D.C.), and many other timbers of value. Scenery of southern hill country. Crops of In wild tropical beauty nothing can surpass the luxuriance of an untouched Coorg forest, as viewed from one of the peaks of the Western Ghats. A waving descent of green, broken into terraces of varying heights, slopes downward on every side. North and south run parallel ranges of mountains, wooded almost to the summit; while to the west, thousands of feet below, the view is bounded by the blue line of the Arabian Sea. Wild animals of many kinds breed in the jungle, and haunt the grassy glades. The elephant, the tiger, and the leopard, the mighty bison, the stately sámbhar deer, and the jungle sheep, with a variety of smaller game, afford adventure to the sportsman. During the rains magnificent cataracts dash over the precipices. The Gersappa falls, in the Western Gháts, have a descent of 830 feet. In the valleys, and upon the elevated plains of the central plateau, tillage is driving back the jungle to the hilly recesses, and fields of wheat and many kinds of smaller grain or millets, tobacco, cotton, sugar-cane, and pulses, spread over the open country. The black soil of Southern India, formed from the detritus of the trap mountains, is proverbial for its fertility; while the level strip between the Western Ghats and the sea rivals even Lower Bengal in its fruit-bearing palms, rice harvests, and rich succession of crops. The deltas of the rivers which issue from the Eastern Ghats are celebrated as rice-bearing tracts. But the interior of the table-land is liable to droughts. The cultivators here contend against the calamities of nature by varied systems of irrigation—by means of which they store the rain brought during a few months by the monsoon, and husband it for use throughout the whole year. Great tanks or lakes, formed by damming up the valleys, are a striking |