NILGIRI IIILLS. 303 or nids, viz. Peranganád, Todanád, Mekanád, Kundanánád, and Southcast Wainád. History: --Nothing is known of the carly history of these hills, and the local tribes are singularly destitute of traditions reaching back beyond comparatively recent times. Cairns and cromlechs found all over the upper plateau put it beyond doubt that at a very early period some tribes inhabited the country, and the ethnological isolation of the Toda tribe confirms this. Their belief is that their own ancestors were autochthones. There is no evidence of there having been any sovereign ruler amongst them; but according to the other hillmen, about a century before the reign of Haidar Ali in Mysore, three chiefs ruled in Todanád, Mekanád, and Peranganád, with their strongholds respectively at Malaikota, Hulikaldrúg, and Kotagiri. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the hills formed part of the Kongudesa or Eastern Chera country, and so passed to Mysore in the 17th century. Haidar Ali appears to have seized two of the forts, viz. Hulikal. drug and Maláikota, which command the passes into the Coimbatore and Malayalam countries, and, after having strengthened and garrisoned them, controlled the hill tribes, and imposed upon them heavy taxes, It is said that Tipú, when he made his incursions into Wainid, ascended the hills through the Segúr ghet, and occupied the fort at Kotagiri. The Nilgiris were first explored in 1914 by Messrs. Keys and M Mahon of the Survey Department. Five years later, Messrs. Thish and Kindersley of the Civil Service ascended (while in pursuit of a band of tobacco smugglers) through a pass near Kotágiri, thereby becoming 'acquainted with the existence of a table-land possessing a European clinate.' A year after (1820), Mr. Sullivan, then Collector of Coimbatore, invited the attention of Government to Utakamand as a sanitarium; and in 1821 he built the first English house on the plateau. Physical Aspects. — The original District consisted of a table-land enclosed between two ranges of hills, thus described by Mr. Breeks : The mountains rise abruptly for two-thirds of their total height, presenting from the plains below almost the aspect of a wall. The interior of the plateau consists chiefly of grassy undulating hills divided by narrow valleys, each of which invariably contains a stream or a swamp. In the hollows of the hillsides nestle small beautiful woods, locally known as sholis.' The summit or plateau presents a most varied and diversified aspect. Although the undulating surface nowhere approaches the character of a champaign country, and frequently breaks into lofty ridges and abrupt rocky eminences, it may be called a plateau, and is practicable to a degree seldom found in mountain tracts of equal elevation elsewhere in India. On all sides, the descent to the plains is sudden and abrupt. The average fall from the crest to the general level below is about 6000 feet, save on the north, where the base
