IMPRESSIONS OF AN OFFICER OF GERMAN GENERAL STAFF OF HIS TRAVELS IN INDIA 110 YEARS AGO (4)

" Ottacamund ,the Governor's summer residence,lies in the west of Southern India amid the Nilgiri Hills.

Twelve hours of hot,dusty railway travelling,and at about nine o'clock in the morning, our train pulls up for long stop at Salem.English people make a point,even when they are travelling,of taking their meals at the accustomed hours and in wonted plenty.

Late in the afternoon we reach,via Koimbatu, Metapolian,the terminus of the line,situated at the foot of Nilgiri Hills.A tonga awaits us here,a two -wheeled covered cart drawn by two horses,to take us to Ootacamund.The little skinny beasts fall into a sort of galloping lope,and at a smart pace we climb the hill road against the collar att the time.

Cultivated only in patches,the country has to some extent preserved its aboriginal features.

The landscape in changeful beauty flows swiftly past us.At first paddy-fields,then whole forests of areca palm.What a gracious tree! Up borne on a slender trunk,it lifts its sapphire crown majestically to heaven.

Enormous clumps of bamboos,insinuating their light plumage here and there among the palm groves,strive to outbid their more stately rivals in grace and attractiveness.

The fair,broad carriage-road crosses streams,clear as silver cascades,frothing and fuming,and deeply fissured gullies.Here a green upland timbered by ancient giant trees. Climbing plants,as long as symmetrical as the rigging of an ocean-going ship hang down from the branches or twine round the trunks.Over there on the slope,flowering shrubs in manifold splendour of flowers  and form.

Every four miles we change horses.Ever higher we climb into ' The Blue Hills',so called because in spring-time the carpets of blue flowers cover them."

(To be Continued)