The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1916-08-18
n N ADRAS, dusty town of splen-
I'M did distances, with harbor
unprotected from storms, is

I'M did distances, with harbor
unprotected from storms, is
yet the terminus OF four rail
way lines and the third largest city of
India. Its Importance Is less due to its
position as a trading center than to its
being the capital of presidency con
siderably larger than Great Britain
and Ireland. 1t is the seat Of uni
versity and its observatory keeps the
time for the whole of India.
Many of the modern public and OIL
cial buildings in Madras are handsome
and imposing, but ever since Queen
Elizabeth granted charter to the
original East India company, the
building most rich in historic memo
ries is st. Mary's church, within the
precincts OF the Madras fort st.
George, writes A. Hugh Fisher in the
Illustrated London News. Standing one
Sunday morning in the welcome cool
ness of the Secretariat buildings, ! was
upon the site of the earliest inner fort,
where divine service was held until ST.
Mary's church was built i'll 1873, to re-
main-subject TO various additions and
alterations-the oldest British build
ing now existing in India. Among the
numerous old gravestones now placed
along the north and part of the east
and west sides of the church is one Of
Aaron Baker, the first president and
governor of Fort st. George, with the
oldest British inscription in India,
dated 1862. The interior contains the
colors Of numerous regiments, and so
many monuments and tablets to men
famous in the history of the British
occupation that the church is some
times called the Westminster abbey of
India. Nor are it's records associated
only with death and burial. In the
font of black granite in 1857 were bap-
tized the three daughters of Job Char
mock, whom he had by the Hindu
widow he had rescued from the funeral
pyre of her husband; Robert Give was
married here in 1853, not far from the
"'Writers' Buildings" where, some
years previously, he had twice snapped
a pistol at his own head the name of
Arthur Wellesley appears in the regis
ter as witness to another marriage
in 1898. It is unfortunate that the
edifice was not designed in nobler
style than was understood by its archi-
tect. the master gunner of the time,
whose chief, and very reasonable, care
was to make the walls thick and the
roof rounded to resist artillery.
The Madras museum is especially
rich in remains from the Buddhist
tope at Amaravati, many of the sculp-
lures from which are familiar to Lon
doners on the walls of the grand stair
case in Bloomsbury.
Through the NiIgiri Hills.
From Madras l went via Erode
Junction to Mettupalaiyam, the ter
minus Of the broad-gauge railway, and
there changed to the narrow gauge
which climbs up the Nilgri hills. The
engine was at the rear, and from a
seat on the extreme front of the train
was able to watch the scenery to adj
vantage while the lookout man kept
his eyes on the metals for any signs or
landslip, such as we met in one deep
cutting. where a piece of fallen rock
lay across the line.
We crossed over clefts and gorges,
by bridges, through the sleepers on
which could see foaming torrents far
below my feet-and crept along mar
row lodges with precipitOus depths on
one side and rocky height soaring on
the other
"Ooty" itself (7,2OO feet above sea
level) Is not unlike Nuwara Eliya In
Ceylon, in its natural scenery as well
as from the social point of view. Sim
liar aruru lilies were growing near a
similar lake, and both places are
crowded during the hot weather by
faded British seeking health and recre-
alton. At the time of my visit, how
ever, Ootacamund was empty. There
were no happy bachelors under canvas
on the golf links there was no one at
the hotels, and St. Stephens church
was almost as deserted as the cricket
ground. In small huts on ejhillside
saw some Todas. the men wearing n
mantle called the 'putluli" thrown
round the shoulders without any fas-
tening. They are distinctly lighter
than most of the other aborigines of
southern India, and the skin Of the
women is of still paler brown than
that of the men.
Todas Are Interesting.
The mountains md hills Of India
have been the refuge of aborigines
who fed before the advance OF the
Aryans, and in the Todns, as well as
in the more northern tribes of the
Bills. Kols. Ghcnds, Santals, and Ma
gas, may be studied the descendants
of those early inhabitants of northern
India, allied to the Dravidians, but OF
Scythian or Monaghan origin. Today