The Gauts, or Indian Appenines. - These form a stupendous wall of mountains, which extends from Cape Comorin, the southern point of the Peninsula of Hindoostan, to theTapty, or Surat river, at unequal distances from the sea coast; it is seldom more than sixty miles, commonly about forty, and in one part approaches within six miles. These mountains rise abruptly from the country of Concan, bounding, in the form of a terrace, a vast extent of fertile and populous plains, which are so elevated as to render the air cool and pleasant. The height is supposed to be from 3000 to 4000 feet.

This celebrated ridge does not terminate in a point when it approaches the Tapty; but, departing in this place from its meridional course, it bends eastward in a serpentine line, parallel to the river, and is afterwards lost among the hills in the neighbourhood of Burrhampour. In its course along the Tapty, it forms several passes or descents towards that river, from whence it derives the name of Gauts, which means a landing-place. The alternate N. E. and S. W. winds, called monsoons, occasion a rainy season only on one side, viz. on the windward side of these mountains