At sunset we reached the village of Campooly, at the foot of the Ghauts--a mean, dirty, and terribly unhealthy spot, situated immediately under the lofty barrier-wall of rock called the Bhor Ghauts, which props up the great table-land of the Deccan[56]--an immense plateau, with large rivers, innumerable hills covered with forts, magnificent towns, cities, villages, and many millions of inhabitants. This enormous mountain-chain of the Deccan, the first of the steps that rise one above the other till they terminate in the great plateau of Thibet, the highest land of the Himâlayas, starts up almost perpendicularly from the Konkan, or lowlands, and is securely fastened together by huge buttresses of primeval granite, naked and frightful to look upon in some places, and again singularly beautiful in others. A railroad and a tunnel have since been built across this once almost inaccessible barrier, and is said to be "a noble piece of engineering," for the Ghauts extend over thirteen degrees of latitude and rise in some parts to a height of five thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea. There was a fine bungalow, built by Bala Roa Angria for the accommodation of European travellers, at Campooly, where we passed the first hours of the night to await some palanquins with their bearers that had already started up the Ghauts. This bungalow is only occupied by chance wayfarers. Here we took up our abode, and only a tribe of monkeys showed the least inclination to prevent our doing so. There were sixteen in all; they were evidently enjoying themselves running in and out of the half-deserted building. A number on the roof were throwing down into the verandah the peculiar nutlike fruit of the large and graceful peepul trees that overshadowed the house. Some were peeping in at the doors and windows, and some were swinging themselves from the rafters. The moment we appeared they showed regular fight, screamed, chattered, and no doubt swore at us hard and fast in monkey fashion; but, what seemed to me most curious, there was not a man in our service who would perform the unkind office of dispersing them from the bungalow. We had to send for our driver, who, being a Musulman, had no scruples of early ancestry or primitive divinities. He took off his cumberbund, or scarf, twisted it into a whip with a knot at the end, and despatched the bulk of the tribe back into the forest whence they had come. Only one great black-bearded male monkey remained on the roof in spite of the brandished rag; when we were at supper this huge creature suddenly suspended himself downward by the tail, looked in upon us, and, opening his hideous jaws, uttered some fierce imprecations, which, as our pundit would say, "were perfectly intelligible, but not translatable," and, having done this, he vanished, and we saw nothing more of him for that evening.