In 1820 Mr. John Sullivan, then Collector of Coimbatore, built the first house in Ootacamund, on the site of a Todar mund of the same name.[410] It is now used as the building for the Lawrence Asylum. The first sanatarium on the hills, however, was at Dimhutty, on the eastern side, and at the adjoining station of Kotergherry, but the former is now abandoned. The delightful climate soon attracted crowds of visitors from the burning plains; many houses gradually rose up on the grassy slopes round the lake which was formed at Ootacamund by bunding up one end of the valley, and the place rapidly became an important hill-station. A small native town and bazaar sprang up on the banks of the lake, a handsome church was erected, a club-house, and, most conspicuous of all, an immense Parsee shop kept by Framjee Nusserwanjee of Bombay. The roads are excellent, and planted with tall graceful Acacia and gum-trees from Australia, and many of the houses are surrounded by beautiful gardens and shrubberies. The most charming, perhaps, is that of the late Bishop Dealtry, called Bishops-down, whence there is a glorious view of the station on one side, and of the distant Koondah hills, overtopped by the sharp peak of Makoorty, on the other. Advantage has here been taken of a wooded _shola_ to make pleasant shady walks, and cut vistas through the trees. The warmer station of Coonoor is about nine miles from Ootacamund, at the head of the ghaut which leads down to the plains of Coimbatore. Here the scenery is far more beautiful than at the central station, as the wooded sides of the ghaut run up into a fine peak called the Hoolicul-droog, and the view extends far away over the plains. The houses are perched on the rounded tops of a range of hills, and there is a church with a fine tower, which is a great addition to the view of Coonoor from the surrounding eminences. A mile from Coonoor, in the direction of Ootacamund, is the military station of Jakatalla, the finest barracks I ever saw in any part of the world. It is well sheltered by high hills from the cold north winds to which Ootacamund is exposed, as well as from the south-west monsoon, and is in every respect admirably adapted as a sanatarium for soldiers and their families. It has been maintained that the children of Europeans cannot be reared even on the hills of India, though upon what grounds this extraordinary assertion is based I have not yet learnt. The strongest arguments against this idea are the fresh rosy cheeks and rude health of the boys and girls in the Lawrence asylum, and of the boys and young men at Mr. Pope's[411] and Mr. Nash's schools in Ootacamund, who present a striking contrast to the children on the plains. The bracing climate of the upper plateau of these hills appears to me to be perfectly well adapted for European colonists: it has all the advantages with none of the disadvantages of England, and there are no influences which can be detrimental to English constitutions. At