The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-16

bridge. narrow and tortuous, three quarters of mile in length, built on piers Of single monoliths. The falls are two in number-Buvi Chukld and Gan gan Chukki At the former the river brOadens out, and its bed is studded with a thousand little islands The height of the falls is not great, under 200 feet. But Buyi Chukki is one of the loyeliest waterfalls in the world The finest effect is by moonlight, when the river is at half flood. Standing on bluff facing the cataracts, at ones feet is broad pool of broken silver water, and down the thickIy wooded semi-circle opposite leaps the laughing river, not in one roaring flood, but in 300 clamOring cascades, in and out among the trees, and over all hangs a veil of mist shining in the moonlight. Gangan Chukki is the very antithesis of its sister cataract. The river mar rows and the flood rushes down gorge, sending up clouds of spray that on a clear day are visible for miles. At the fcot of Gangan Chukki. a few hundred yards down the rapids, stands the gen. erating station.
 The Cauvery Falls are thirty miles from the nearest railway station in a l thinly populated district The country is very wild, and for miles the transmits l sion line, consisting of telegraph posts carrying six strands of copper wire. runs through hilly jungles infested by tiger panther and bear. Herds of ele- plants still roam wild there. Tame ele- plants helped to convey the machinery from the railway to the works-they 1 and bullocks. white lOnghOrned breed of draught bullocks, for which Mysore has for generations been famous. It was the excellence of this breed that enabled Hyder Ali a century and a quarter ago to make forced marches | with his heavy artillery, and nearly to drive England out of southern India. | Hyder Ali and his guns have passed but his bullocks and Britain remain to tame the waterfalls in place of ruth lessly bringing peoples into subiectlon l Not the least obstacle that Captain Joly de Lothbiniere had to overcome was the popular superstition that the divinity of the sacred Cauvery would slay all that interfered with the stream
 Most difficult was it for this reason to l collect labor. and malaria. always dead ly in the river bottoms. especially when the soil is newly turned. played havoc
 and there was also a bad outbreak of l cholera. Ignorant people speak of these 1 superstitions as fOolishness.
 Yet in truth it is hard to conceive higher wisdom than that whereby the
 belief that the rivers were the peculiar cars of the gods was firmly instilled in.
 to the popular mind in days wher
 Kings and Sultans were iespots. A
 bridge foolishly built or a stream di.
 verted by some petty tyrant might
 have wrought perpetual ruin for hun.
 dreds of miles up and down the water.
 shed. By tact and careful explanations
 the old superstition was overcome ant
 the work proceeded quickly. Thi:
 month it is hoped that all the minins
 machinery on fhe Kolar gold fields wil
 he worked by electricfmotors, the DOW
 CT for which has been generated at tn,
 falls ntnety-two miles away If the full
 measure of success anticipated by Cap
 tain De Lotbiniere islattained. we shal
 soon hear of other Indian waterfalls be
 ing turned to practical use.-Iondo, Globe.