Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 3).djvu/29



The two main mountain systems of Southern India are called respectively the eastern and western ghāts, which include between them the great table-land of the Deccan and Mysore, and meet at an angle in the Nllgiri Hills. The word ghāt, in its proper application, means a path of descent or steps leading to a river, such as the celebrated bathing-ghāt at Benares, or a mountain pass. In the latter sense, it is correctly used by Sir Walter Scott in The Surgeon's Daughter, which deals with Madras and Mysore in the time of Haidar Ali. The word is now generally applied to the mountain ranges or ghāts, through which the passes lead. The best known of such passes is the Coonoor ghāt on the Nllgiris, which can be ascended either by the ghāt road, or by the mountain railway. The road, cut through the hill-side, is protected by a stone parapet, to prevent vehicles from falling down the precipitous hill-side or khud. The steep bluff called Hulikal Drūg (tiger-stone fort), or more commonly the Drūg, at the south end of the ravine which forms the Coonoor ghāt, is surmounted by an old fort, and derives its name from a legend relating to a man-eating tiger which once infested the neighbourhood. Other ghāts on the Nllgiris are the Sigǖr, Gudalūr, Karkǖr, Sispāra and Kotagiri ghāts, which lead to the Mysore and Wynaad table-lands and the plains of Malabar and Coimbatore.

The name Nīgiris or Blue Mountains (nlla-giri) is probably derived from the blue haze which hangs over the