Sispara

[1] It may refer to: Sispara peak (സിസ്പാര മല), elevation 2,206 metres (7,238 ft) at 11°12′12″N 76°25′56″E / 11.20333°N 76.43222°E / 11.20333; 76.43222, is in the northeast end of Silent Valley National Park, Palakkad district of the Kerala state, in the core area of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, in the Western Ghats of South India.

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.

The forests near Sisapara are exposed to the full force of the southwest monsoon and receive up to 250 inches (640 cm) per year of rain,[4] but suffer from a long drought during the winter.

Rising abruptly from the low jungle covered plains of Malabar, to the lofty surface of the Koondah plateau, an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet (2,400 m), 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.

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.

[7] 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.

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.

This shed is protected by an elephant-proof trench, and trekkers may use it with permission of the Wildlife Warden, Silent Valley National Park.

[11] In the 19th century, this pass provided the shortest route for postal delivery between Ootacamund in the hills and Kozhikode on the west coast and was used for smuggling of cannabis, tobacco and later salt.

[12] 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 first written report of the use of this route up into the Nilgiri hills was by an expedition of the Goa Inquisition led by the Jesuit priest Jacome Ferreira, from the Syrian Christian Church of the Malabar coast at Calicut.

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 coolies.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Sispara pass leading down into Silent Valley, is enveloped in foliage and remains hidden even from the top of the peak.