After much careful consideration it had been decided that the best place for commencing the experimental cultivation of chinchona-plants in India would be the Neilgherry hills, in the Madras Presidency. Here are to be found a climate, an amount of moisture, a vegetation, and an elevation above the sea, more analogous to those of the chinchona forests in South America than can be met with in any other part of India. In the Government gardens at Ootacamund, on the Neilgherries, there were the necessary conveniences for propagating plants and raising seedlings; and in Mr. William G. McIvor, the Superintendent, was to be found a zealous, intelligent, and practical gardener, who had carefully studied the botany of the chinchona genus, and under whose care the cultivation would be commenced with the best possible guarantees for its success. From the Neilgherries the chinchona-plants will, it is hoped, be introduced into such other hill districts of Southern India as, after examination, may be found suitable for their growth; and it was a part of my duty to visit the most promising localities, and, in conjunction with Mr. McIvor, to select the sites for chinchona plantations on the Neilgherry hills. With this object in view we landed at the port of Calicut, on the coast of Malabar, on the 7th of October, 1861. TRAVELS IN INDIA. CHAPTER XXI. MALABAR. Calicut--Houses and gardens--Population of Malabar--Namburi Brahmins--Nairs--Tiars--Slaves--Moplahs--Assessment of rice-fields, of gardens, of dry crops--Other taxes--Voyage up the Beypoor river--The Conolly teak plantations--Wundoor--Backwood cultivation--Sholacul--Sispara ghaut--Black-wood--Scenery--Sispara--View of the Nellemboor valley--Avalanche--Arrival at Ootacamund. HE who would desire to receive the most pleasant impression of India, on a first arrival, must follow in the wake of Vasco de Gama, and land on the coast of Malabar, the garden of the peninsula. Here Nature is clad in her brightest and most inviting robes, the scenery is magnificent, the fields and gardens speak of plenty, and the dwellings of the people are substantial and comfortable.