At last, after a nine days' sail, we lay to off the mouth of the harbour into which, for reasons best known to himself, the captain of the craft did not choose to enter, and I was taken ashore in a canoe to be kindly received by the judge of the collectorate of South Kanara, to whom I had a letter of introduction.
After spending some pleasant days at Mangalore I set out for Manjarabad, the talook or county which borders on the South Kanara district--in what is called a manshiel--a kind of open-sided cot slung to a bamboo pole which projects far enough in front and rear to be placed with ease on the shoulders of the bearers.

Four of these men are brought into play at once, while four others run along to relieve their fellows at intervals.

I started in the afternoon, and was carried up the banks of a broad river by the side of which hero and there the road wound pleasantly along.

In the course of a few hours night fell, and then all nature seemed to come into active life with the hum of insects, the croaking of frogs, and various other indications of an abounding animal life.

Presently I was lulled to sleep by the monotonous chant of the bearers--sleep only partially broken when changes of the whole set of bearers had to be made--and awoke the following morning to find myself some fifty miles from the coast, and amidst the gorges of the Ghauts, with vast heights towering upwards, and almost all around, while the river, which had now sunk to what in English ideas would still seem to be one of considerable size, appeared as if it had just emerged from the navel of a mountain-barrier some miles ahead.
After a few miles more we passed the last hamlet of what was then called the Company's Country, and leaving the inhabited lands--if indeed in a European sense they may be called so--behind us, began to ascend the twenty miles of forest-clad gorges which lead up into the tableland of Mysore.