![Peacocke-Travellers Bungalow, Sispara](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Peacocke-Travellers_Bungalow%2C_Sispara.jpg)
Sispara , സിസ്പാര (Sisapara, Sisparra, Sisparah, Su:spore), a
proper noun
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', '' Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...
, is a combination of the
Badaga language
Badaga is a southern Dravidian language spoken by the Badaga people of the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. The language is closely related to the Tamil and Kannada languages.
Of all the tribal languages spoken in Nilgiris (Badaga, Toda l ...
words ''si:su'' + ''pore''; meaning:
magnetite
Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With th ...
bearing rock +
gorge.
It may refer to:
*
Sispara peak, a large hill in Kerala;
*
Sispara bungalow, the shelter at the base of the peak;
*
Sispara pass, the low gap between hills where the shelter is located; or
*
Sispara ghat, the mountain trail that goes through the pass.
Sispara peak
![Sispara in Baikie,frontpiece](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Sispara_in_Baikie%2Cfrontpiece.jpg)
Sispara peak (സിസ്പാര മല), elevation at , is in the northeast end of
Silent Valley National Park
Silent Valley National Park is a national park in Kerala, India. It is located in the Nilgiri hills, has a core area of , which is surrounded by a buffer zone of . This national park has some rare species of flora and fauna. This area was explo ...
,
Palakkad district of the
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
state, in the core area of the
Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve
The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve is a biosphere reserve in the Nilgiri mountains of the Western Ghats in South India. It is the largest protected forest area in India, spreading across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. It includes the protected ar ...
, in the
Western Ghats of
South India
South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...
. It is near the southwest end of
Mukurthi National Park
Mukurthi National Park (MNP) is a protected area located in the western corner of the Nilgiris Plateau west of Ootacamund hill station in the northwest corner of Tamil Nadu state in the Western Ghats mountain range of South India. The park w ...
in Tamil Nadu state.
One can approach this peak by passing northwest up behind the bungalow, and ascending the high bluff below the peak. Half an hour's walk leads to a vertical precipice of the escarpment facing the plains of Malabar. Numerous lofty trees growing at the foot of the precipice reach the brim of this point. A walk along the edge of this escarpment brings one to a huge peaking mass of rock, a few hundred yards from the foot of the highest Sispara summit, which stands like a battlement on a wall. In 1886,
Henry Francis Blanford
Henry Francis Blanford (sometimes spelt Blandford) (3 June 1834 – 23 January 1893) was a British meteorologist and Paleontology, palaeontologist who worked in India. He was a younger brother of the Natural history, naturalist William Thomas B ...
, geologist of the
Geological Survey of India
The Geological Survey of India (GSI) is a scientific agency of India. It was founded in 1851, as a Government of India organization under the Ministry of Mines, one of the oldest of such organisations in the world and the second oldest survey ...
, described the view from this peak:
The view from this point is really magnificent, particularly that of the gigantic amphitheatre to the right, the termination of the Koondahs on this side. It is very striking to look at this stupendous semicircular recess, formed by enormously lofty mountains, the summits of which rise vertically to thousands of feet, and whose abrupt sides are deeply corroded by ravines and chasms, down which small but romantic cascades precipitate themselves, adding to the magnificence of this stupendous scenery.
Sispara peak is the abode of the
Toda tribes people ancestral spirits. It is the second highest peak in the core area of Silent Valley,
Anginda peak
Anginda peak (അങ്ങിണ്ട മുടി) is a mountain in the Nilgiri Hills of the Western Ghats on the border of the Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu and Palakkad district of Kerala. It has an elevation of and is the highest peak ...
at , being the highest. The forests near Sisapara are exposed to the full force of the
southwest monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscill ...
and receive up to per year of rain,
but suffer from a long drought during the winter.
![Peacocke-View in the Koondahs, near Sispara](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Peacocke-View_in_the_Koondahs%2C_near_Sispara.jpg)
Extending northeast from Sispara peak over in a magnificent amphitheatre of precipices and steep hills in the
Nilambur South Forest Division to Mukurthi peak (, ) is the great western escarpment of the Kundah Range.
Henry Blanford described this area well:
There is perhaps no scene in Southern India more grand and imposing than this gigantic escarpment. Rising abruptly from the low jungle covered plains of Malabar, to the lofty surface of the Koondah plateau, an elevation of nearly , a precipitous hill face covered with dense jungle, furrowed but not broken up by innumerable hill torrents which course down its surface, and glisten like silver threads amid the dark green foliage of the forest. It would seem at first sight perfectly inaccessible from the plains below, and such it is throughout the greater portion of its extent.
It is only at Sispara that, with considerable engineering skill, a road has been constructed, forming a communication between the hills and the low country of Malabar, and it is from this road that the finest view of the escarpment is obtainable.
Sispara bungalow
Sispara bungalow is at the eastern base of Sispara peak, just north of the trail at , elevation: . When the Sispara road from Ootacamund to the foot of the hills below was being made in 1832, it was the camp of the
Pioneers Army Regiment who made the road. It was first named Murraypet, after Captain W. Murray who was in charge of the detachment. A travellers bungalow was built there just below a strikingly sheer cliff of rock. Later
chattram(refreshment shed) was built beside that. While the trail was still in use, this place was a well known and much frequented halting-point on what was then the main route from
Kozhikode
Kozhikode (), also known in English as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. It has a corporation limit population of 609,224 and a metropolitan population of more than 2 million, making it the second l ...
to Ootacamnud.
About 1840, a coloured lithograph of a painting by Captain
Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke shows that there was a small tiled bungalow, with a thatched outbuilding and a large tent at this place. It also shows the small seasonal stream between the trail and the bungalow.
A later lithograph of the place, which forms the frontispiece to the second edition of Baikie's Neilgherries, shows that by 1857, a tiled bungalow and a smaller shed stood there.
After 1857, the bungalow at Sispara was accidentally burnt down and was never rebuilt.
By 1908 it was deserted and overgrown.
A gruesome story is told of a poorly informed traveller who attempted to get to Ootacamund from the west coast by this route. One of his two servants quickly succumbed to exposure from the cold and driving rain of the monsoon. He set out up the ghat with the other, who collapsed soon afterward. The traveller took him on his back and struggled up the trail, buoyed with the hope of assistance and food when he reached the Sispara bungalow at the top. When he did finally arrive there, the only sign of the bungalow was its crumbling ruins, and the nearest human being was at Avalanche, further on! He managed to reach that place, still carrying his servant, but the latter had died on the way.
[
In 2007, a roughly new steel trekkers' shed was built on the old site. This shed is protected by an elephant-proof trench, and trekkers may use it with permission of the Wildlife Warden, Silent Valley National Park.
]
Sispara pass
Sispara pass, formerly known as Koondah (Kundah) pass, is a mountain pass between Sispara peak and Anginda peak. This is the lowest and most accessible passage through the steep western escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...
of the Kundah range of the Nilgiri hills
The Nilgiri Mountains form part of the Western Ghats in northwestern Tamil Nadu, Southern Karnataka, and eastern Kerala in India. They are located at the trijunction of three states and connect the Western Ghats with the Eastern Ghats. At le ...
. Sispara pass is at the head of a long and deep ravine, enclosed between two almost perpendicular ridges. The Ghat trail is built along the side of the northwest ridge.
In the 19th century, this pass provided the shortest route for postal delivery between Ootacamund in the hills and Kozhikode
Kozhikode (), also known in English as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. It has a corporation limit population of 609,224 and a metropolitan population of more than 2 million, making it the second l ...
on the west coast and was used for smuggling of cannabis, tobacco and later salt.
The Devil's Gap is an extraordinary chasm situated at the top of the escarpment, four miles (6 km) north of the steepest part of Sispara pass. The lower part of this chasm is nearly level with the road which passes close to it. The rocks forming its walls are about apart in the center and near the opening it is about wide.
Sispara ghat
The Sispara ghat
Ghat, a term used in the Indian subcontinent, depending on the context could refer either to a range of stepped hills with valleys (ghati in Hindi), such as the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats; or the series of steps leading down to a body of ...
mountain road ran west-north-west from Ootacamand to Avalanche; then up the Kundahs to Bangitappal; another to Sispara in the extreme south-western Corner of the plateau; and then more down a steep descent to Walaghat (halfway down the slope) and Sholakal at the bottom. From Sholakal to Arriakul on the Baypoor river was and thence by large boat to Kozhikode
Kozhikode (), also known in English as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. It has a corporation limit population of 609,224 and a metropolitan population of more than 2 million, making it the second l ...
port on the Indian Ocean. Overall travelling distance between Kozhikode and Ootacamund by Sispara was .
The first written report of the use of this route up into the Nilgiri hills was by an expedition of the Goa Inquisition
The Goa Inquisition ( pt, Inquisição de Goa) was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition in Portuguese India. Its objective was to enforce Catholic Orthodoxy and allegiance to the Apostolic See of Rome (Pontifex). The inquisition primaril ...
led by the Jesuit priest Jacome Ferreira, from the Syrian Christian Church of the Malabar coast
The Malabar Coast is the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing m ...
at Calicut
Kozhikode (), also known in English as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. It has a corporation limit population of 609,224 and a metropolitan population of more than 2 million, making it the second l ...
. Ferreira's formal report, written upon his return on 1 April 1603, contained some account of the Badagas and Todas. It states that he and his party returned by a better route than they arrived. The route was shown to them by the kindly Badagas, of which no account is given but which may have been the Sispara path.
In November 1831, development of the Sispara ghat, formerly known as the Koondah (Kundah) ghat, was suggested by Mr. Stephen Rumbold Lushington
Stephen Rumbold Lushington (6 May 1776 – 5 August 1868) was an English Tory politician and an administrator in India. He was governor of Madras from 1827 to 1835.
Early life
He was born at Bottisham, Cambridgeshire, the son of the Rev. James S ...
, then Governor of Madras
This is a list of the governors, agents, and presidents of colonial Madras, initially of the English East India Company, up to the end of British colonial rule in 1947.
English Agents
In 1639, the grant of Madras to the English was finalized b ...
, to provide a speedy route to Ootacamund
Ooty (), officially known as Udhagamandalam (also known as Ootacamund (); abbreviated as Udhagai), is a city and a municipality in the Nilgiris district of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located north west of Coimbatore and ...
from Calicut for invalids travelling by ship from Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...
.
It became practicable for lightly laden carts as far as Avalanche by an improved road and was a maintained bridle-path as far as Sispara. Up to Sispara, it was much used by shooting-parties and two private shooting huts were not far south of it at Pirmand and Bison Swamp. However, the steep path below Sispara, overgrown with dense jungle, was passable only on foot.
In 1831, Major Crewe, Commandant of the Nilgiris, Lieutenant LeHardy, surveyor of the Coonoor ghat then under construction, and Captain Murray of the Pioneer Regiment, searched the western side of the plateau for a practicable route for a new road and at length heard of the Sispara path, which, though greatly overgrown, was then one of the obscure paths used by tobacco-smugglers.
Lieutenant LeHardy surveyed the best route for the trail afterwards called the Sispara ghat. Captain Murray and his Pioneers were entrusted with the construction of the road. Between 10 January and 31 May 1832, they established camps at Avalanche and Sispara and worked to clear and level the road with the aid of coolies and 'tank-diggers'.
On 31 May, Capt. Murray reported that the Kundah pass, as it was then called, was open with a path down the slopes connecting with the roads on the Malabar plains. Sispara was known for some time as Murraypet. The route was so infested with elephants and tigers that the Collector of Malabar obtained sanction to purchase five large swivel mounted muskets (jingalls) and employ ten peons (foot soldiers) to shoot the beasts and protect the coolie
A coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a term for a low-wage labourer, typically of South Asian or East Asian descent.
The word ''coolie'' was first popularized in the 16th century by European traders acros ...
s. The track was very rough but the monsoon set in and later the Pioneers were diverted to widening the Coonoor ghat. Work was not resumed till 1836.
In 1836 the track was so narrow that two people could not ride abreast along it. The principal obstacle was the 'ladder hill' near the middle of the descent, which was surmounted by steep zigzags at very acute angles. The Pioneers were camped at Walaghat, halfway down, in huts scattered through the jungle, the site being too steep and confined for any regular cantonment.
The road was finished in 1838, with a gradient of one in nine. Bungalows for travellers were built at Sholakul, Walaghat, Sispara and Avalanche. The extraordinarily heavy rainfall at that end of the Kundahs necessitated large annual repairs in subsequent years. The trail was so steep that it was seldom used for laden cattle, and the climate was so severe and the shelter en route so insufficient that Europeans often could not get coolies to come with them to carry their baggage. The ghat thus failed to fulfill its high expectations. As early as 1841 it was declared to be 'rarely traversed except at the height of the dry season', and it was eventually abandoned. After 1857, the bungalow at Sispara was accidentally burnt down and was never rebuilt.[ pp.232–233]
The following account of the ascent of Sispara Ghat by Clements Robert Markham defies editing.
We landed at the port of Calicut, on our way to the Nilgiri Hills, on the 7th October 1860. He who would desire to receive the most pleasant impression of India, on a first arrival, must follow in the wake of Vasco da Gama, and disembark 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.
Late in the evening, we embarked in a canoe on the Beypur river. The banks are wooded down to the water's edge, with groves of slender betel palms rising above the other foliage, and standing out against the starry sky. We were met by Mr. Mclvor at the landing-place of Eddiwana, and started at once for the village of Wundur, whence the road leads up the Sisapara ghat to the Nilgiris.
The ascent commences at Sholakul, a post-house surrounded by stout palisades, to protect it from wild elephants. Thence the road first passes through a tract overgrown with gigantic weeds, and then up a steep slope, covered with a forest of blackwood and other fine timber trees, with an undergrowth of ferns, ''Curcuma
''Curcuma'' () is a genus of plants in the family Zingiberaceae that contains such species as turmeric and Siam tulip. They are native to Southeast Asia, southern China, the Indian Subcontinent, New Guinea and northern Australia. Some species are ...
s'', and a brilliant little purple flower, the Wishbone Flower, '' Torenia Asiatica'' ( ''Torenia glabra''). The occasional openings in the forest, at turns in the road, afforded us views of the mountains below us, covered with the richest vegetation, and of the rice-fields of Malabar, stretching away to the faintly indicated blending of sea and haze on the far horizon. As we continued the ascent the scenery increased in magnificence, the views became more extensive, and there were mountain-tops crowned with grand forest trees far below us. At 6000 feet mosses appear, then lilies, brambles, and wild strawberries, and occasionally we crossed noisy little streams overshadowed by the trees.
We reached the Sisapara bungalow, on the summit of the ghat 6742 feet above the level of the sea, late in the afternoon. The Sisapara ghat takes the traveller from the tropical plains to the temperate climate of the hills, where the face of Nature is entirely changed. Here the slopes are covered with grass, and the ravines only are filled with trees, forming thickets called sholas. In the rear of the Sisapara bungalow, there is an almost unrivalled view of the Malabar plains, from the edge of a precipice. The Kundah hills sweep round until they join the Wyanad range, and appeared to be so steep that even a cat could not scale them for many miles; and far below were the forests, with occasional open glades. The distance from Sisapara to Utakamand, the chief English station on the Nilgiris, is thirty-three miles, fifteen of which are over the Kundah hills, and the rest of the distance is within the Nilgiris proper.
Flora and fauna
From Sispara peak there is a panoramic view of deep valleys packed with dense vegetation. The Sispara pass leading down into Silent Valley, is enveloped in foliage and remains hidden even from the top of the peak.
Robert Wight
Robert Wight MD FRS FLS (6 July 1796 – 26 May 1872) was a Scottish surgeon in the East India Company, whose professional career was spent entirely in southern India, where his greatest achievements were in botany – as an economic botani ...
, a surgeon turned botanist, ventured into this area in the middle of the 19th century. In the process, Wight discovered seven new species from Sispara and the adjoining jungles and as many as 122 Indian plants have been named after him.
The Sispara Day Gecko is found here. The Gecko Cyrtodactylus nebulosus
''Cyrtodactylus nebulosus'', also known as the clouded Indian gecko, is a species of gecko found in India.
Description
:Note that the following diagnostic description may include ''Cyrtodactylus collegalensis
__NOTOC__
''Cyrtodactylus colleg ...
was abundant near the foot of the Sispara slopes.
The endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...
plants Glochidion sisparense, Ilex gardneriana
''Ilex gardneriana'' is a critically endangered species of plant in the family Aquifoliaceae. It is endemic to the Nilgiri Hills of India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of ...
, Melicope indica, Memecylon sisparense, Pavetta hohenackeri
Peliosanthes neilgherrensis
Pogostemon paludosus, Pygeum sisparense, Symplocos pulchra and Youngia nilgiriensis
''Youngia nilgiriensis'' is an endangered perennial herb. It is Endemism, endemic to the Sispara area of the Kundah range of the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu, South India characterised by vast stretches of grasslands interrupted by numerous shola ...
are endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
to the Sispara area.[Threatened Plants of Tamil Nad]
Threatened Plants of Tamil Nadu
The now endangered '' Impatiens denisonii'' was once very abundant along the Sispara Ghat on rocks and trees of the western slopes of the Nilgiris at elevations of to .[Beddome, Richard Henry ]
Impatiens denisonii Bedd.
Madras J. Lit. Sci. Ser. III, i. (1864) 41.
References
Literature
* Baber, Thomas Hervey, (1830) ''Journal of a route to the Neelghurries from Calicut'', Asiatic Journal (New Series), III, 310–316.
External links
* Photos
Revisiting Nilgiris’ Peaks and Passes
{{Western Ghats
Nature conservation in India
Mountains of Kerala
Geography of Palakkad district
Mountains of the Western Ghats