vegetation, amid which rise many tall forest trees, while the bamboo grows profusely in the valleys. The drainage on the east is carried by numerous streams direct to the sea, and that to the west flows into the Godāvari through the Indravati or through the Sabari and Siller rivers. To the west of the range is situated the greater portion of the extensive zamindari of Jāipur, which is for the most part very hilly and jungly. In the extreme north a remarkable mass of hills, called the Nimgiris, rise to a height of 5000 ft. The plain along the Bay of Bengal is a vast sheet of cultivation, green with rice fields and gardens of sugar-cane and tobacco. There are great varieties of climate in the district. Along the coast the air is soft and relaxing, the prevailing winds being south-easterly. The average annual rainfall at Vizagapatam exceeds 40 in. Pop. (1901) 2,933,650, showing an increase of 4.7% in the decade. The principal crops are rice, millets, pulses and oil-seeds, with some sugar-cane, cotton and tobacco The coast portion of the district is traversed throughout by the East Coast railway, opened from Madras to Calcutta in 1904, and a line through the hills from Vizianagram to Raipur in the Central Provinces has been sanctioned. The chief seaports are Bimlipatam and Vizagapatam.
On the dissolution of the Mogul empire Vizagapatam formed part of the territory known as the Northern Circars, which were ceded to the East India Company by treaties in 1763 and 1766. It was long before British authority was established over the hilly tract inland, inhabited by aboriginal tribes, and still administered under a peculiar system, which vests in the collector the powers of a political agent. This tract, forming more than two-thirds of the whole district, is known as the Agency.
See The Vizagapatam Dislrici Gazetteer (Madras, 1907).
VIZETELLY, HENRY (1820–1894), English publisher, was born in London on the 30th of July 1820, the son of a printer. He was early apprenticed as a wood engraver, and one of his first blocks was a portrait of “Old Parr.” Encouraged by the success of the Illustrated London News, Vizetelly in 1843, with his brother James Thomas Vizetelly (1817–1897) and Andrew Spottiswoode (1787–1866), started the Pictorial Times, which was published successfully for several years. In 1853, in partnership with Boyne, he started a threepenny paper called the Illustrated Times, which four years later was merged in the Penny Illustrated Paper. In 1865 Vizetelly became Paris correspondent for the Illustrated London News. During the years he remained in Paris he published several books—Paris in Peril (1882), The Story of the Diamond Necklace (1867) and a free translation of Topin’s Man in the Iron Mask. In 1872 he was transferred to Berlin, where he wrote Berlin under the New Empire (1879). In 1887 he established a publishing house in London, issuing numerous translations of French and Russian authors. In 1888 he was prosecuted for publishing a translation of Zola’s La Terre, and was fined £100; and when he reissued Zola’s works in 1889 he was again prosecuted, fined £200 and imprisoned for three months. In 1893 he wrote a volume of autobiographical reminiscence called Glances Back through Seventy Years, a graphic picture of literary Bohemia in Paris and London between 1840 and 1870. He died on the 1st of January 1894. His younger brother, Frank Vizetelly (1830–1883), was a clever artist and journalist; he went to Egypt as war correspondent for the Illustrated London News and was never heard of after the massacre of Hicks Pasha’s army in Kordofan.
VIZEU, or Viseu, an episcopal city and the capital of the district of Vizeu, Portugal, at the terminus of a branch of the Figueira da Foz-Guarda railway, and on the Ribeira d’Asnos, a sub-tributary of the Mondego. Pop. (1900) 8057. The cathedral, which was founded in the 12th century, contains pictures by the native artist Grāo Vasco (16th century). The city stands near the ruins of the ancient Vacca, or Cava de Viriato, a Roman military colony founded by Decius Brutus and captured by Viriathus (2nd century B.C.). The administrative district of Vizeu coincides with the central and northern parts of the ancient province of Biera (q.v.). Pop. (1900) 402,259; area, 1937 sq. m.
VIZIADRUG, Vijaydurg or Gheria, a port on the W. coast of India in Ratnagiri district, Bombay, 170 m, S. of Bombay city. Pop (1901) 2339. It is one of the best harbours on the west coast, being without any bar, and may be entered in all weathers; even to large ships it affords safe shelter during the south-west monsoon. At the beginning of the 18th century the pirate chief Angria made Viziadrug the capital of a territory stretching for 150 m. along the coast and from 30 to 60 m. inland. The fort was taken by Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive in 1756.
VIZIANAGRAM, a town of British India, in the Vizagapatam district of Madras, 17 m. from the seaport of Bimlipatam, on the East Coast railway, 522 m. N.E. of Madras. Pop. (1901) 37,270. It has a small military cantonment. It contains the residence of a zamindar of the same name, who ranks as the first Hindu nobleman of Madras. His estate covers about 3000 sq m., with a population of 900,000. The estimated income is £180,000, paying a permanent land revenue of £34,000. The town possesses many fine buildings, entirely supported by the raja. It has a college and two high schools.
The ruling family, which claims descent from a high official at the court of Golconda, established itself in Vizagapatam in the 17th century. In 1754 Viziarama Raz made an alliance with the French, but his son, on succeeding, fell out with them, captured Vizagapatam from them and ceded it to the British in 1758. The next raja, another Viziarama, was entirely under the influence of his half-brother Sita Ram, whose power, however, became so great a menace that he was forced to retire in 1793. A period of decay now set in. The raja was incompetent, and, his estate having been sequestrated for debt, revolted and was defeated and killed in 1794. The next raja, Narayana Babu, was no more successful, and his estate had been long under the management of the British government when he died in 1845. Viziarama Gajapati Raz, who succeeded him and took over full powers in 1852, was a man of ability, and received the titles of maharaja and K.C.S.I.; as also was his son, the maharaja Ananda Raz, G.C.I.E. He died in 1897, and was succeeded by Raja Pusapati Viziarama Gajapati Raz, during whose minority (till 1904) the estate was again under government administration.
VIZIER, more correctly Vizir (Arabic Wazir), literally “burden-bearer” or “helper,” originally the chief minister or representative of the Abbasid caliphs. The office of vizier, which spread from the Arabs to the Persians, Turks, Mongols, and other Oriental peoples, arose under the first Abbasid caliphs (see Mahommedan Institutions, and Caliphate, C § 1) and took shape during its tenure by the Barmecides (q.v.). The vizier stood between sovereign and subjects, representing the former in all matters touching the latter. This withdrawal of the head of the state from direct contact with his people was unknown to the Omayyads, and was certainly an imitation of Persian usage; it has even been plausibly conjectured that the name is but the Arabic adaptation of a Persian title. In modern usage the term is used in the East generally for any important official under the sovereign.
VIZZOLA TICINO, a village of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, 6 m. W. of Gallarate and 31 m. N.W. of Milan, 725 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 469. It is situated on the Ticino, and is remarkable as having one of the largest electric works in Europe, worked by water-power from the Ticino brought by a canal 412 m. long, constructed in 1889–91 by the Società Lombarda per Distribuzione di Energia Elettrica. Gallarate, Sesto Calende, Saronno and other neighbouring places are supplied from here with electricity.
VLAARDINGEN, a river port of Holland, in the province of South Holland, on the Maas, 6 m. by rail W. of Rotterdam. Pop. 17,000. A very old town and the seat of a former margraviate belonging to the counts of Holland, Vlaardingen is now chiefly important as the centre of the great herring and cod fisheries of the North Sea. Its only ornaments are the old market-place and the gardens formed by the purchase in 1825
