of the same grain is grown under the numerous tanks fed by torrents from the hills; CHAP. I.
General Description. so that in the cultivation season the country has an air of exceeding prosperity. The higher, red land there is occupied by dry fields, each usually separated from its neighbour by rows of palmyra palms; and these same palms stand in groups in every hollow and, though on the west their supremacy is challenged by the date, they are the prevailing tree in this part of the district.
Along the shore lies a series of salt or sandy swamps; but the coast line itself is broken, in refreshing contrast to the monotonous dead levels further south, by a number of bold headlands and beacons which act as groins to protect the land against the constant encroachments of the waves and currents. The best known of these are the Pólavaram rock, the Dolphin's Nose at Vizagapatam, Rishikonda ('the Sugar-loaf hill ') just north of Lawson's Bay at Waltair, and the big Narasimha hill at Bimlipatam.
The only hills in this open plain are the low red and black ones already referred to. Hills. These, as has been said, are generally scattered but sometimes stand in rows; and the latter run from north-east to south-west parallel to the coast. In the Anakápalle and Sarvasiddhi taluks are two prominent parallel lines of this kind, and between Sarvasiddhi and Golgonda is quite a considerable and continuous range. West of Vizagapatam and Bimlipatam stands a great confused group of the same kind of hills, the best known of which is called after the Simhachalam temple (see p. 323) near its summit.
North and west of the open plain rise the hills of the Agency already mentioned. They are a section of the great line of the Eastern Gháts.
In the north, in the Ráyagada, Gunupur and Bissamkatak taluks of the Jeypore zamindari and Párvatípur division, In the Párvatípur division. they are lower than elsewhere and consist of steep and rugged lines, devoid of plateaus, hedging in the two broad, almost parallel, valleys of the Vamsadhádra and Nagávali rivers, which drain them southwards down an easy gradient into the Bay of Bengal. A line of heights runs north and south through the middle of this tract and separates these two valleys. It is called the Kailásakóta hills and the highest point on it is 3,895 feet above the sea. In the north-west corner of Bissamkatak taluk is a curious group of larger hills, called the Nímgiris, which rise abruptly from the upper valley of the Vamsadhára (here 1,100 feet above the sea) to close on 5,000 feet.
