Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 3).djvu/39



From the great watershed of the western ghāts, only short rivers flow westward through the plains of South Canara, Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore, into the Arabian Sea, the main drainage making its way for the most part eastward, and emptying itself into the Bay of Bengal.

The Gersoppa Falls, formed by the Sharāvati river, and situated on the Bombay-Mysore frontier, derive their name from the village of Gersoppa. The name has been corrupted by Anglo-Indians into Grasshopper Falls. The falls are said to have few rivals in the world in height, volume, and beauty, the river hurling itself over a cliff 830 feet high in four cascades called the Rāja or Horse-shoe, Roarer, Rocket, and La Dame Blanche.

Of the rivers which flow westward, communicating, in many cases, with the extensive system of backwaters (p. 190), may be noted the Netrāvati and Gurpur rivers in South Canara, the Ponnāni, Beypore, and Valarpattanam in Malabar, and, further south, in Cochin and Travancore, the Alwaye, Chālakudi, and Periyar. The Netrāvati and Gurpur rivers have a common entrance into the sea at Mangalore. The Beypore river flows through the Nilambur valley, and much timber from the forests is floated down to its mouth, near which it is connected with Calicut by the Conolly canal. The Ponnāni forms part of the boundary