A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c7.11

c7.11

Seen from the west the Western Ghats present the appearance of a gigantic sea-wall, often rising in steps from the shoreline—hence the name ‘ghats’. They are a steep and rugged mass of hills, little more than 2,000 feet above sea-level at the northern end, rising to more than 4,000 about the latitude of Bombay, generally increasing in altitude towards the south and culminating in the Nilgiris with Dodabetta at a height of 8,760 feet where the Eastern Ghats meet the Western after making a sweep from the other side of the peninsula. Immediately south of the Nilgiri plateau lies the only break in the continuity of the Western Ghats, the Palghat or Coimbatore gap, which is about twenty miles from north to south and affords lowland access from the Carnatic to the Malabar coast at a level of about a thousand feet above the sea. This easy road into the Carnatic from Cochin and Calicut and other ports on the west has played an important role all through history. South of the gap, the ghats reach an even greater height in Anaimudi peak (8,841 ft.) and strike SSE., terminating at the extremity of the peninsula in Cape Comorin. The crest line of the ghats is generally at a distance of from fifty to one hundred miles from the Arabian Sea although in places it approaches so close to the shore as to restrict the width of the coastal plain to no more than five miles, and it is not uncommon for spurs and ridges to end as cliffs along the coast.