when changes of the whole set of bearers had to be made--and awoke the
following morning to find myself some fifty miles from the coast, and
amidst the gorges of the Ghauts, with vast heights towering upwards, and
almost all around, while the river, which had now sunk to what in English
ideas would still seem to be one of considerable size, appeared as if it
had just emerged from the navel of a mountain-barrier some miles ahead.
After a few miles more we passed the last hamlet of what was then called
the Company's Country, and leaving the inhabited lands--if indeed in a
European sense they may be called so--behind us, began to ascend the
twenty miles of forest-clad gorges which lead up into the tableland of
Mysore. The ascent was necessarily slow, and it was not till late in the
afternoon that I saw, some 500 feet above me, and at a total elevation of
about 3,200 feet above sea-level, the white walls of the only planter's
bungalow in the southern part of Mysore. To this pioneer of our
civilization--Mr. Frederick Green, who had begun work in 1843--I had a
letter of introduction, and was most kindly received, and put in the way
of acquiring land which I started on and still hold. To the south, in the
adjacent little province of Coorg--now, as we shall afterwards see, an
extensive coffee-field--the first European plantation had been started the
year before, i.e., 1854, while to the north some fifty to seventy miles
away the country was, in a European sense, occupied by only three English,
or, to be exact, Scotch planters. In 1856 I started active life as a
planter on my own account, about twelve miles away from the estate of Mr.
Green, while in the same year two other planters--Scotchmen by the
way--made their appearance. The southern part of Mysore was thus occupied
by four planters, and we were all about twelve miles from each other. It
is difficult to conceive the state of isolation in which we lived, and as
we were all Europeanly speaking single handed, and could seldom leave
home, we often had not for weeks together an opportunity of seeing a
single white face, and so rare indeed was a visit from a neighbour that,