the honey collecting daughter of the chief of the Veddas mountain tribe. The chief and his wife prayed to the Mountain God for a girl and their prayers were answered when the chief found a newborn girl child during a hunting expedition. As she was found among creeper plants, they named her Valli and she grew up as princess of the tribe in Kurinji and became the consort of lord Murugan. The romantic traditions of Murugan in Sangam literature are thus associated with the name Kodaikanal. History The earliest residents of Kodaikanal were the Palaiyar tribal people. The earliest specific references to Kodaikanal and the Palani Hills are found in Tamil Sangam literature of the early Common era. Modern Kodaikanal was established by American Christian missionaries and British bureaucrats in 1845, as a refuge from the high temperatures and tropical diseases of the plains. In the 20th century a few elite Indians came to realise the value of this enchanting hill station and started relocating here. Tourism has been impacted by industrial pollution issues including the closure of a mercury factory owned by Unilever's Indian subsidiary Hindustan Unilever after evidence of widespread mercury pollution. To date no proper clean-up operation has been mounted. Train The Kodaikanal-Gudalur Railway line was under the contemplation of the Government from 1889 when the Madras and Travancore Governments made an agreement regarding the waters of the Periyar river in 1895 a survey was made in 1897 after the completion of the Periyar dam, the Government granted permission to the then Wilson and Company, Madras to construct a light railway from Kodaikanal railway station, then Ammaayanaickanur railway station, which lies between Dindigul and Madhurai railway stations, to Gudalur within two years The company failed in floating the capital wanted within the period allotted and thus the permission granted automatically expired. Then the Government made several surveys till 1920 After the close of the First World War, the Government sanction, ed in 1920 this line under the postwar reconstruction scheme and directed the District Board, Madurai to intimate to the Government within two years whether it was willing to take UP this work, as the then South Indian Railway Company and the two planters of the Kannan Devan Hills were willing to undertake the work. In 1922 the district board of Madurai intiiP&ted the Government to cancel the sanction of the Kodaikanal road- Gudalur railway line and