miles from the falls, I had previously sent on with my native servants bedding and mosquito curtains, and the means necessary to prepare meals for the party.  Reports had reached us of creeping things being abroad in this bungalow, and my servant had been particularly enjoined to look out for, and, as far as possible, guard against them.  This he had done by putting the bedsteads in the sun and doing what further he could.  But notwithstanding his assurances of safety, one of the ladies of the party insisted that, from all she had heard, there must be creeping things somewhere about.  The servant listened with an air of respectful attention to all she had to say, and, when she had quite done, said with quiet persistence, and much to our amusement, “What Missus says is true, but there are no bugs,” and I am glad to say that he was justified in making the assertion.  We rose very early the following morning, started at 4.20, at 6.20 arrived at the bungalow near the falls, and, after a little delay to get a cup of tea, drove at once to the nearest fall.  But I must here pause for a few moments to describe the general situation of the river, the islands formed by its splitting into two distinct branches, and the position of the fall—­a total situation which is not easily comprehended without the aid of a map.

The Cauvery Falls are on the river of that name, which rises in Coorg, and, after a run of 646 miles to the south-east, falls into the Bay of Bengal about midway between Madras and Cape Comorin.  Before reaching Seringapatam (which is on an island in the river) it is joined by the Hemavati which rises to the north of Manjarabad and, as we have seen, skirts the eastern border of that talook, or county.  As the Hemavati sends down a large body of water the source of which is more distant from the sea than the spot in Coorg which is called the head of the Cauvery, I may remark in passing that it is singular that the latter should have been regarded as the source of this fine river, which really rises in Mysore.  But, rise where it may, it at last arrives at a point on the southern frontier of Mysore where the bed of the Cauvery splits into two channels and forms the island of Hegora, which is about three miles long, and from a quarter of a mile to a mile wide, and, by a rather curious, coincidence, almost exactly the size of the island on which the fortress of Seringapatam has been built.  The northern branch of the river washes the Mysore frontier and this, after about two miles, again divides, or rather a small branch diverges to the north and, forming a loop, cuts away from the mainland the island of Ettikoor, and there falls into the northern branch of the river by various cascades, and just below the point where the falls on the main northern branch occur.  This group of falls is called Gangana Chuckee.