X432/4(3)

The waterfall at Courtallum in the Tinnevelly district.

No. III. WATERFALL AT COURTALLUM, IN THE TINNEVELLY DISTRICT.

The Waterfall at Courtallum, called Tancanche, about twenty miles northward from the Cataract of Puppanassum, is also accounted by the Hindoos a place of peculiar sanctity. On certain festivals the number of people that resort to this spot from every part of India, is almost incredible; and to accommodate so great a concourse of religious persons, numerous choultries are provided. Some of the buildings of that description appear in this view; the others (sometimes connected with pagodas) are scattered about the valley in different situations; and the grandeur and religious solemnity of the scene is much heightened by a grove of large spreading trees, two or three miles in extent, beneath which is the general pathway leading to the great object of their devotion.

Besides those who frequent the falls of Tancanche and Pappanassum simply for the purposes of devotion, many also repair thither in order to procure the sacred water, which they carry about in small bottles carefully packed up in curious baskets; these, attached to each end of a bamboo, they bear on their shoulders, and travel many hundred miles through the country, occasionally distributing, at the principal Hindoo temples in their route, small portions of this holy fluid, whereby they insure to themselves whatever food and accommodation they may require.

The height of the cataract of Courtallum is two hundred and twenty feet.