The Cauvery flowing eastward over the plateau is the most considerable river of Southern India. As it descends the Eastern Ghats it makes great falls, and these have been harnessed, as the phrase is, and made to supply power which is carried electrically for nearly a hundred miles to the Kolar goldfield, within the Mysore boundary. The engineer who superintended the construction of this work was a French Canadian officer of the Royal Engineers—interesting evidence of the increasing solidarity of the British Empire.
Bangalore is the chief military station of southern India. It is connected by rail with Madras, but is situated on the plateau within Mysore. From Bangalore the line runs on to Seringapatam on the Cauvery, and to Mysore city beyond. These were the seats of the Muhammadan Sultans, Hyder Ali and Tippu, father and son, who, a generation later than the time when Clive fought at Arcot, held Madras in terror from their highland fastness. The threat to the British position in India was a real one. Hyder Ali leagued himself with the French, with whom we were then at war, but he was defeated under the great Governor-General, Warren Hastings. Tippu, Hyder’s son, was also an ally of the French. He lived into the time of Napoleon, and made his chief attack on British power when the French were in Egypt, but he was defeated and killed. Colonel Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, first rose to notice in this campaign. He was appointed to command “the troops above the Ghats.” After the death of Tippu, the civil administration of Mysore was also assigned to Wellesley, and splendid work he did as civil administrator.
[Sidenote: 56. Southern India, showing rainfall of S.W. Monsoon.] [Sidenote: 57. Pykara Falls, Nilgiri Hills.] [Sidenote: 58. Gairsoppa Falls.] A third map shows you the rainfall which is brought by the west winds of the summer time to the Malabar Coast. These winds strike the Western Ghats and the Nilgiri hills and drench them with superabundant moisture, so that they are thickly forested. At this season magnificent waterfalls leap down the westward ravines and feed torrents which rush in short valleys to the ocean. One of the grandest falls in the world is at Gairsoppa, in the northwestern corner of the state of Mysore.
