On the Indian Hills

FOR the next week or so my work was varied by very extensive lopping and burning operations on Bungalow Hill. This is a spur of the high range which bounds our land on the north-east, and was selected as a site for the "pucka" bungalow on account of standing centrally placed in the middle of the estate, and being some two hundred feet above the surrounding country, which should make it fairly healthy. The only hills which overtopped it were the high forest-clad cone of "Hootcha Mullah" to the eastward within this property, and to the north-west, across the Manalora stream (which was our boundary in that direction), the rocky grass-covered heights of the Pardagherry Mountain. On this same hill, and just visible from where I had been working lately, was a wonderful bare precipice, with a wall of rock some three hundred feet in height. Directly underneath, almost sheltered from the rain by the overhanging cliff above, with the help of a telescope it was possible to make out the picturesque little straw-thatched hut of another English planter, S---, who lived there by himself -- the greatest hermit of us all.

The view was extensive whichever way one looked. To the right and left the high mountain just mentioned shut off the quarter of each monsoon, and looking southward down the winding valley of the Manalora, the eye ranged over long expanses of unclaimed jungle stretching right away to Cape Comorin. We were, in fact, the most southerly of all the estates in this direction, and beyond us was a wilderness, the home of the bison and elephant, all "impenetrable jungle." To the north-east we looked along the course of the road, which lead here, over half a dozen estates buried in deep frames of jungle, each with its little white bungalow and dusky coolie "lines;" and amid most of them one caught here and there the flashing of a pool or streamlet, the all-important water for turning the pulping machinery and supplying the coolies. Farther away the ghaut road began, and, the hills sloping down, nothing more was seen of the forest until the lowlands unrolled themselves, stretching far away like a wonderful fabric of green and silver cloth. At this distance the towns and villages could not be made out, but just where the great Southern Indian plain was melting away into indistinguishable distance, the great towering Neilgherry Mountains rose up again, ascending tier above tier into the sky.

Hither each morning I made my way, at the head of a long array of axe and bill men, threading the narrow path, while the mist still hung about, and every spider's web was beaded with a thousand glittering liquid diamonds. At the hill-top I generally stopped for a moment to admire the view, while the maistries got the coolies into working parties. But there was not much time for meditating on the beauties of nature, for much had to be done before any attempt could be made to build on this commanding spur. The forest which clothed it was cut down some six months before, and presented a scene of wild confusion; but, for some reason, when the three months of drying had been allowed and fire was applied, the "burn" proved a failure. The flames ran rapidly over the clearing, consuming all the leaves and lighter stuff without touching the heavier timber, which, of course, cannot be burnt as it lies, unless a great heat is obtained by the embers of the smaller materials. So it became necessary to lop up everything and burn it by installments -- a long job, and needing all the best labor on the estate. As soon as we arrived, the ashes of yesterday's fires were raked together and carefully nursed into a blaze by the skilful coolies, and then twelve or fifteen tiny columns of thin grey smoke curled up in the still morning air, and soon the ring of the axes was heard and the crackling of sticks, as the fires gained height and strength, and the coolies no longer enjoyed poking them, but threw on logs and branches from a respectful distance. By the time the sun came up we were encanopied in a dense curtain of yellow smoke, through which at first he shone only feebly, but when he got higher and stronger and glared on us from above, his rays, added to the heat of the now roaring bonfires, produced a result never to be forgotten. Nearly every day I was subjected to a temperature high enough, one could almost fancy, to cook a thick chop, and besides this I was continually choked with smoke, blinded with clouds of hot white ashes, and stifled with