In Old Madras by B.M. Croker — Read

Two or three times a week, Mrs. Bourne and her young friends mounted their ponies, and went for extensive excursions in the neighbourhood. Mallender rode a stout brown cobby animal from Bonagherry, known as "The Duffer," the lady of Kartairi, a well-bred chestnut who had played polo, and Barbie, a wiry flea-bitten grey, whose propensity for thieving, and agility in climbing, had earned for her the name of "The Cat." Kartairi stood amid what might be termed a sea of coffee bushes, extending for many acres; at first, the little party were obliged to ride along the narrow coolie tracks in Indian file; they had also to pass through that deplorable spectacle, an abandoned estate. Here the land was overrun with a climbing prickly plant, the desolate bungalow was dismantled, and the pulping-house a ruin -- all this, to the credit of the planter's deadly enemy the "Borer" Worm.

Emerging at last from among lucent green bushes, the riders came by degrees upon grassy uplands, and the great silent spaces, which are bounded by the Western Ghauts. Here were glades, downs, and clumps of trees recalling English parks; and in the cool clear air, the little party enjoyed many a delightful and invigorating gallop.