The original Chinese who arrived on the Nilgiris were convicts from the Straits Settlement, where there was no sufficient prison accommodation, who were confined in the Nilgiri jail. It is recorded [44] that, in 1868, twelve of the Chinamen "broke out during a very stormy night, and parties of armed police were sent out to scour the hills for them. They were at last arrested in Malabar a fortnight later. Some police weapons were found in their possession, and one of the parties of police had disappeared--an ominous circumstance. Search was made all over the country for the party, and at length their four bodies were found lying in the jungle at Walaghat, half way down the Sispara ghat path, neatly laid out in a row with their severed heads carefully placed on their shoulders." The measurements of a single family are recorded in the following table:-- ======================================================================== | |Cephalic|Cephalic|Cephalic| Nasal | Nasal |Nasal | |length. |breadth.| index. |height.|breadth.|index. ---------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+------- Tamil |Mother of | 18.1 | 13.9 | 76.8 | 4.7 | 3.7 | 78.7 Paraiyan.|children. | | | | | | ---------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+------- Chinese |Father of | 18.6 | 14.6 | 78.5 | 5.3 | 3.8 | 71.7 |children. | | | | | | ---------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+------- Chinese- |Girl, | 17.6 | 14.1 | 80.1 | 4.7 | 3.2 | 68.1 Tamil |aged 18 | | | | | | ---------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+------- Chinese- |Boy, | 18.1 | 14.3 | 79 | 4.6 | 3.3 | 71.7 Tamil |aged 10 | | | | | | ---------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+------- Chinese- |Boy, | 17 | 14 | 82.4 | 4.4 | 3.3 | 72.7 Tamil |aged 9 | | | | | | ---------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+------- Chinese- |Boy, | 17.1 | 13.7 | 80.1 | 4.1 | 2.8 | 68.3 Tamil |aged 5 | | | | | | =========+==========+========+========+========+=======+========+======= The father was a typical Chinaman, whose only grievance was that, in the process of conversion to Christianity, he had been obliged to "cut him tail off." The mother was a typical dark-skinned Tamil Paraiyan. The colour of the children was more closely allied to the yellowish tint of the father than to that of the mother; and the semi-Mongol parentage was betrayed in the slant eyes, flat nose and (in one case) conspicuously prominent cheek-bones.