ulavar were the ploughers, the velanmadar and toluvar the tillers and the kadaiyars were the farmworkers. Their headmen were known as Mahinan, Uran and Manaiyol. Their settlements were known as perur and their place-names often had the suffixes eri, kulam, mankalam and kudi.The Marutam (Lagerstroemia speciosa) tree was the characteristic tree of this region. Neithal—Seashore The seashore affords many examples of the compelling charm of Sangam poetry and the extraordinary freshness of its realism. From behind the conventional symbolization of waiting there emerges a picture of the life of the fisherfolk; the nets and boats drawn up on the beach, scuttling crabs and cart wheels bogged down in the sand, the odour of drying fish, cut into thick slices, which attracts the birds, beautiful village girls peering through the Pandanus hedges, and the wind blowing through the cracks in the roughly constructed straw huts at night. Kadalon, the water god, is worshiped in Neithal. The inhabitants were known as parathavar, nulaiyar and umanar whose occupations included fishing, coastal trade, pearl diving and salt manufacturing. The parathavars were sailors and fishermen, the nulaiyar were the divers and umanars the salt manufacturers and merchants. Their settlements were known as pakkam or pattinam, which were maritime trading ports. The headmen were known as Thuraivan, Pulampan and Serppan. The neithal, or water lily is the characteristic flower of the region. Pālai—Dry Lands In classical Tamil prosody, the pālai or wasteland is not seen as being a naturally occurring ecology. Ilampuranar, in his commentary on the Tolkappiyam, explains that instead, the landscape of the wasteland with which the paalai is associated emerges when other landscapes whither under the heat of the burning sun. The palai flower is identified as Wrightia (Wrightia tinctoria). The people inhabiting this region are known as eyiner, maravar and kalvar who were involved in waylaying, highway robbery and soldiering. The Eyiner (from ey – bow) were hunters who hunted with bow, the maravar (from maram – valour) were soldiers and the kalvar (from kal – robbery) were robbers. Their chiefs were known as mili, vitalai and kalai. Their settlements were known as kurumpu. Kotravai, the Mother goddess and goddess of war, is worshipped here. The theme of wasteland and separation occupies half of one of the most famous anthologies, the theme of the mountain being only secondary. References Gros, Francois, Poetry in a landscape; the world of Sangam - Indian literature,