buchanan’s journey through
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cf Karnata have for the prowefs of a Marattah army, but the horror which they haveat its cruelty. When Purferam Bhow left this neighbourhood, his people carried offall the handfome girls that fell into their hands ; and they fwept the country fo cleanof provifions, that three-fourths of the people perifhed of hunger.
17th Auguft — In the morning I went two and a half coffes to Conli.
18th Auguft.— In the morning I went all over Doray Guda, which is about amile in length, from five to fix hundred yards in width, and is divided into threehummocks. The northernmoft of thefe is the moft confiderable, and rifes to the per-pendicular height of four or five hundred feet. It is fituated in the Hagalawadidiftrift; but, for what reafon I know not, pays its rent to the amildar of ChicaNayakana Hully. This is the only hill in this vicinity that produces the iron ore;but as the fame hill in different villages is called by different names, I at one timeimagined that the mines had been numerous. The people here were ignorant ofthere being any other mine in this range of hills ; but that I afterwards found to bethe cafe. At Conli this hill is called Doray Guda, which name I have adopted. Onall fides it is furrounded by other low hills ; but thefe produce no iron.
The whole ftrata of thefe hills are vertical, and, like all others that I have feen inthe country, run nearly north and fouth. Where they have been expofed to theweather, on a level nearly with the ground, which is generally the cafe, thefe ftratadivide into plates like fchiftus, and feem to moulder very quickly. In a few placesthey rife into rocks above the furface, and then they decay into roundifti or angularmafles. All that I faw were in a ftate of great decay, fo that it was difficult to afcer-tain their nature; but, no doubt they are either earthy quartz, or hornftone, va-rioufly impregnated with iron, and perhaps fometimes with manganefe. Within, themafles are whitilh, with a fine grained earthy texture; but outwardly they are coveredwith a metallic efflorefcence, in fome places black, in others inclined to blue.
A ledge of this rock pafles through the longer diameter of Doray Guda, andfeems to form the bafis of that hill; but the whole fuperftratum, both of the fides andfummit, feems to be compofed of a confufed mafs of ore and clay. The furface only is atprefent wrought; fo that very little knowledge can be obtained of the interior ftruftureof the hill. In its fides the miners make fmall excavations, like gravel-pits, butfeldom go deeper than five or fix feet. On the perpendicular furface of thefe theappearance is very various. In fome places the ore is in confiderable beds, difpofedin thin brittle vertical plates, which are feparated by a kind of harlh fand, yellow,bluifh, or green. In one place I obferved this fand of a pure white, and forminglittle cakes, readily crumbling between the fingers. In other places the ore is hard,forming irregular concretions, with various admixtures of earth, clay, and ochres.This kind has a tendency to afiume regular forms, botroidal, and reniform, which in-wardly are ftriated with rays diverging from a center. Sometimes plates are formedof this kind of ore, which confift internally of parallel ftrias. Another form of the oreis bluifli, and very brittle. The whole is mixed with what the natives call cari-cul,or black-ftone, which is brown haematites. This is alfo fcattered all over the furfaceof the ground, and there efpecially afiumes botroidal and reniform ffiapes. By thenatives it is confidered as totally ufelefs. In fome pits I could obferve nothing likea regular difpofition of the component parts; in others, the various fubftances areevidently ftratified, both in ftraight and waved difpofitions.
The manner of mining the ore i€ extremely rude and unthrifty. A man with apick-axe digs on the fide of the hill, until he gets a perpendicular face five or fixfeet wide, and as much high, having before it a level fpot that is formed from what
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