the Western Palais with a mean elevation of 7,000 feet, rising in Vembādi Shola hill to 8,218 feet above the sea. In the central portion of the range is the popular hill-station of Kodaikānal (7,200 feet), which is reached by a ghat road from the town of Periyakulam near the foot of the hills. The crow has not yet found its way to Kodaikānal, and it is on record that a Brahman who had to perform the srādh or anniversary ceremony for his dead father, in which crows play an important part, telegraphed to Periyakulam for a pair of these birds, which duly arrived in a cage. The Palnis are inhabited, among others, by the Kunnuvans, and by the Paliyans, who are also found further south near the foot of the Tinnevelly hills.
The Eastern Ghāts have been described as "a disjointed line of small confused ranges which begin in Orissa, pass into Ganjam, the northernmost district of the Madras Presidency, and run through a greater or less extent of all the districts which lie between Ganjam and the Nīlgiri plateau. They are about 2,000 feet in elevation on an average, and their highest peaks are less than 6,000 feet. In Ganjam and Vizagapatam they run close to the shore of the Bay of Bengal, but, as they travel southwards, they recede further inland, and leave a stretch of low country from 100 to 150 miles wide between their easternmost spurs and the sea." In the three northern districts of Ganjam, Vizagapatam and Godāvari, the hill country is included in the Agencies (p. 10). The Māliahs or highlands of Ganjam, composed of a series of undulating plateaux, contain the highest peaks, named Singarāzu and Mahendragiri, which rise to a height of nearly 5,000 feet above the sea. Many passes lead into these hills, and include the Kalingia ghāt from Russellkonda, the Munisinghi ghāt from Parlākimedi, and the Taptapāni or hotspring ghāt, so named from its containing a hot sulphur
