iv

use of others, what he has seen and heard, thought and felt, of the world which surrounds him.

I shall, then, give you a description of the field of labour assigned to me, with as much exactness as possible, reserving to a future period the right of supplying such deficiencies and correcting such mistakes as may discover themselves in this attempt of the first

The above letter introduced the first pages of the Coorg Memoirs to the Madras Christian Herald. After some time the Rajendranama was obtained, examined and embodied in the Coorg papers. Some kind friends advised the author to complete his manuscript and to publish the whole in a separate form. Coorg and its Mission might thus, they hoped, become more widely known, and gain the sympathies of a larger circle of friends. This is the history of the little book. Being the work of a foreigner and a man of little leisure, it lays no claim to English style or superior penmanship, but humbly endeavours to furnish the patient reader with a new and true account of an interesting country and race.

The history of Coorg from 1809 to 1834 has cost considerable labor. Popular traditions, accounts of

eyewitnesses and written documents required to be collected, sifted, arranged, and harmonized. No statement has been made without careful examination. Truth has been told sine ira et studio. The sad tale will excite mingled feelings of horror and pity. Let such as know how to pray, offer up their supplications for the salvation of Coorg. The judgments of God have descended upon the race of its Rajahs. Their history has ended in infamy and exile. Yet in the midst of judgment He has remembered mercy. A child of this house has found her way into the Church of Christ, and Queen Victoria, Sovereign of the greatest Empire of the world, has not been ashamed, to bestow her name and her affection upon a daughter of the last of the Haleri Rajahs. Auspicious omen for Coorg ! O, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for mercy endureth for ever.

His

THE COUNTRY OF COORG.

COORG has shared the common fate of Indian names. As the Badaga people on the Nílagiri (Neilgherries) have been named Burghers, so Kodagu has been anglicized into Coorg; when and by whom I am unable to tell.

The Western ghatts gradually rise to the Southward, till they attain their greatest elevation in the Doddabetta near Otte. The mountainous country between the river Hémávati on the North and the Tambáchéri pass on the South, South-Canara and North-Malabar on the West, and Mysore on the East, has for ages borne the name of Kodagu. It is situated between the twelfth and thirteenth degrees of North latitude, its greatest length from North to South is about 60 miles, its breadth from East to West about forty miles; these dimensions however, continue but for a short space. The lowest parts of Coorg are not less than 3000 feet above the sea, its highest peaks, the Pushpagiri near Subrahmanya, and the Tadiandamól near Nálkanádu, have a full view of the Indian Ocean, though at a distance of 40 or 50 miles, rising as they do to a height of 5,682 and 5,781 feet. The aspect of the Coorg mountains from the low West is extremely grand and picturesque. Eastward they descend gradually to the high table land of Mysore. Mercara (properly Madikéri) is 4,506 feet above the sea, Nálkanádu palace (where a Coorg princess, a wife of Tippu, now upwards

of eighty years of age, is residing) 3797, Vírarájéndrapett Bungalow 3,399, Fraserpett 3,200, Kólúr Betta 4,500.

Coorg is the great treasury from which South Canara and North Malabar, from one monsoon to the other, draw their supply of water. From the Kumáradháre, which springs from the foot of the Pushpagiri and joins the Nétrávati near Uppinangadi, on the North, to the Barpolle which disembogues into the Western Sea near Cannanore, a dozen streams, issuing from the sides of the Coorg mountains intersect the country, and having watered it, return to the ocean from which their waters were carried into the hills and forests of Coorg by the clouds of the past season.

Throughout the year the great waterworks in the humid valleys, the forest-clad hills and the Alpine atmosphere of Coorg are in motion. From the end of December to the end of March, rain, indeed, is scarce, but the valleys are seldom without their fogs, more or less dense, in the mornings and evenings, and heavy dews are frequent. During these months the dry East wind prevails, which has long ceased to carry remains of North-East monsoon-clouds to the Western watershed. Towards the end of March the sky begins to collect clouds, the winds are regular, the air grows moister. In April and May the sun increases in power, the sea-breeze dies away, thunderstorms and frequent showers, indicating the approach of the monsoon, cool the atmosphere from time to time. The temperature, generally warm and moist, reminds one of summer-days and nights in Europe.

I cannot refrain here, though it be at the risk of tiring the patience of the kind reader, from attempting a description of a natural phenomenon, peculiar in this degree of beauty to the April and May-nights of Coorg, · I advert to the yearly appearance of the fire-fly. These