[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] At this time there was a disputed succession in the Carnatic State, and the English supported one aspirant for the throne of the Nawab, the French another. The Nawab of the English party was besieged in the Fort of Trichinopoly by the French and their Nawab. To effect a diversion, a young Captain, Robert Clive, in the British company’s service, seized the Fort of Arcot, a hundred miles to the north, and by a prolonged heroic resistance to the siege which gathered round him, succeeded in relieving the pressure on Trichinopoly. That Captain Clive became Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey, the founder of the British Empire in India. He went out as a writer or clerk in the service of the East India Company, and rose to be Governor of Bengal. It must be remembered, however, that in the time of Clive, no less than to-day, the number of the British in India was surprisingly small. As we saw just now, the Police, a great force, are not British but Indian, and the Indian army, though with British officers, is twice as numerous as the British garrison. The British have organised the peace and unity of India, rather than conquered it in the ordinary sense. The life of the white man in India is governed by the seasons. Here in the south the temperature is at all times high, though the heat is never so great as in the hot season of northern India. On the other hand there is no cool season comparable with that of the north. In most parts of India, however, there are five cool months, October, November, December, January, and February. March, April, and May are the hot season. The remaining four months constitute the rainy season, when the temperature is moderated by the presence of cloud, but the moisture is trying to the European constitution. [Sidenote: 28. The Nilgiris, near Ootacamund.] In all parts of India the white population seeks periodical relief by a visit to the hills. Here in the south the favourite hill station is Ootacamund, in the Nilgiri Hills. It is scattered over a wide space, with the bungalows in separate compounds or enclosures. [Sidenote: 29. Ootacamund, The Bazaar.] [Sidenote: 30. Ootacamund, General View.] [Sidenote: 31. Ootacamund.] [Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] “Ooty,” as it is familiarly called, stands some seven thousand feet above the sea in the midst of a country of rolling downs rising yet another thousand feet. This lofty district forms the southern point of the Deccan plateau where the Eastern and Western Ghats draw together. A deep passage, twenty miles broad, known as the gap of Coimbatore or of Palghat, lies through the Ghats, immediately south of the Nilgiri Hills, from the eastern plain to the Malabar Coast. Other hills, equally high, lie southward of the gap and extend to Cape Comorin. We saw these last hills to our left hand as we travelled northward from Tuticorin to Madura.