Vizagapatam/Chapter 1

by Walter Francis

GAZETTEER

OF THE

VIZAGAPATAM DISTRICT.

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CHAPTER I.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION.

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General Description—Position and boundaries—Taluks and chief towns—Etymology of name—Natural divisions. Hills—In the Parvatipur division—The 3,000 feet plateau—Galikonda as a sanitarium —The 2,000 feet plateau—The Malkanagiri taluk. Rivers—The Varaha—The Sarada—The Chittivalasa river—The Gostani—The Langulya—The Vamsadhara—The T61—The Indravati—The Kolab and Saveri—The Sileru. Soils. Climate—Rainfall—Temperature. Geology. Minerals—Manganese—Iron—Graphite—Limestone—Steatite—Sapphirine—A meteorite. Flora. Fauna—Domestic animals; cattle—Sheep—Goats—Game.

Vizagapatam lies on the east coast of the Presidency and, except CHAP. I. General Description.

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Position and boundaries Ganjam, is the northernmost of all the Madras districts. Its head-quarters, after which it is named, is 487 miles by rail from Madras. It is the largest district in India and the most populous in the Province, having an area of no less than 17,222 square miles and containing, in 1901, 2,933,650 inhabitants. On the east (see the map in the pocket at the end of this volume) it is bounded by the Bay of Bengal and Ganjam; on the north by the Native State of Kalahandi in Bengal, which runs down into it like a wedge, and by the Raipur zamindari of the Central Provinces; on the west by the Native State of Bastar belonging to the same Provinces; and south by the Godavari district of this Presidency. Here and there the boundaries follow for some distance the courses of various rivers, but usually, excepting the line of the coast, they are not defined by any well-marked natural features.

As the map shows, Vizagapatam consists of an open strip of Taluks and chief towns. land facing the shore, and of two large areas of hilly country rising north and west of this. These hills are for the most part covered with jungle and inhabited by backward people to whom CHAP. I. General Description. it is considered inexpedient to apply the whole of the ordinary law of the land. They are accordingly administered, under a special enactment passed in 1839 (see p. 196), by the Collector in his special capacity of 'Agent to the Governor' for these tracts, and are known aa 'the Agency.' The ordinary courts of justice have no jurisdiction within them (the Agent being the chief civil and criminal tribunal) and the Agent is moreover endowed with unusual powers there, such as authority to deport on warrant, without formal trial, persons whose presence is harmful to the cause of law and order.

The district is arranged for administrative purposes into the Vizagapatam division. Vizagapatam. * Srungavarapukota. Vizianagram division. Vizianagram. Bimlipatam. Chipurupalle. Gajapatinagaram. * Palkonda. Narasapatam division. * Golgonda. Anakapalle. Sarvasiddhi. * Viravilli. Parvatipur division. * Parvatipur. ** Bissamkatak. Bobbili. ** Gunupur. ** Rayagada. * Salur. Koraput division. ** Koraput. ** Jeypore. ** Padwa. ** Pottangi. ** Malkanagiri. ** Naurangpur. five divisions and twenty-three taluks shown in the margin. Those of the latter which are marked with one asterisk are partly in the Agency above referred to, while those with two asterisks are included wholly within that area. Only three of the taluks (Golgonda, Palkonda and Sarvasiddhi) are ryotwari land, the others (which make up nine-tenths of the whole district) baing zamindari. The head-quarters of the various taluks are at the places after which each is named except in the cases of Golgonda, Sarvasiddhi and Viravilli, the chief stations in which are Narasapatam, Yellamanchili and Chodavaram respectively. The chief towns in the district are the municipalities of Vizagapatam (with its European suburb of Waltair), Vizianagram, Anakapalle and Bimlipatam, and the unions of Bobbili, Parvatipur, Salur, Palkonda and Narasapatam. Excepting these, there is no town of as many as 10,000 inhabitants. Some account of them, and also of other places of interest in the district, will be found in Chapter XV below.

The name Vizagapatam is properly Vaisakhapattanam, Etymology of name. 'the town of Vaisakha' or Kartikeya, the Hindu Mars. Tradition has it that some centuries ago a king of the Andhra dynasty encamped on the site of the present town on his way to Benares, and, being pleased with the place, built a shrine to Vaisákha, his favourite deity, just south of Lawson's Bay there. Encroachments of the sea are supposed to have long since swept away this building, but it is said to have given its name to the town and its traditional site is still supposed to be an auspicious spot for religious bathings. The name is popularly shortened to 'Vizag,' and the form 'Vizac' was in use from almost the earliest days of the English occupation of the district in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Similar abbreviations for Gajapatinagaram and Srungavarapukóta are badly needed.

Vizagapatam and the four other northernmost districts of the Presidency are known as 'the Northern Circars.' This name dates from the time of the Musalman occupation (see p. 30), when the five 'Sarkárs' (divisions of territory) in the north (the chief town of which was Masulipatam) were Guntúr, Kondapalli, Ellore, Rajahmundry and Chicacole. The Chicacole Circar included the present Ganjám and Vizagapatam districts.

Vizagapatam consists, broadly speaking, of the two great Natural divisions. natural divisions already mentioned; namely, the strip of land along the coast and the hills which flank it on the north and west. The hills, however, as will be seen immediately, comprise several widely differing areas.

The strip of land along the coast drains eastward to the Bay of Bengal by the series of rivers referred to below. In the north of it, the Pálkonda taluk consists for the most part of rather monotonous wet land. Further south, Chípurupalle and Bobbili are also somewhat treeless and unlovely. But the rest of it (though barren, scrub-covered intervals occur) is chiefly made up of an undulating expanse of fertile soil (mostly red, but changing to black in the basins of the rivers and other alluvial spots) which is picturesquely diversified by numerous groves and hundreds of low, bare, red and black hills.

In Sarvasiddhi and Anakápalle these hills are wonderfully alike in appearance, being whale-backed in outline and seamed with black rocks showing through the sparse scrub like ribs. They are generally scattered at hap-hazard, but sometimes they are arranged in long lines, and then they have an almost comic resemblance to a solemn procession of some vast monsters silently following one another in Indian file.

The inland parts of this strip of land differ in aspect from those next the shore. Inland, the basins of the streams are occupied by almost continuous stretches of rice-fields, and much of the same grain is grown under the numerous tanks fed by torrents from the hills; 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.

As a rule (the appearance of the various taluks is referred to in more detail in Chapter XV) CHAP. I. Hills. the hills in this part of the district are covered with stunted forests ruined by constant felling and burning, while the valleys are open expanses of park-like land cultivated with a little paddy and much dry crop. The forests here and elsewhere are briefly described in Chapter V and the roads and passes in Chapter VII.

The hills on the west of the coastal plain consist of three main plateaus. The 3,000 feet plateau. The highest and largest of these, which is made up of the main line of the Eastern Ghats and runs parallel to the shore of the Bay, is usually known as 'the 3,000 feet plateau.' It sweeps down from the southernmost limit of the wedge-shaped bit of Kalahandi State already mentioned on the north, right through the middle of the district, to the Godavari boundary on the south and is about 110 miles long with an average width of 40 miles. The whole of it is tilted slightly to the west and its eastern edge is boldly marked by a line of the biggest hills in the district and drops sharply to the plains. Between this escarpment and the low country proper, however, often intervene range behind range of lower foot-hills, hidden among which are secluded valleys of all sizes and shapes, cut off from the outer world except for rough tracks across the passes, but inhabited and cultivated. Viewed from the plains, these outer hills lend the main plateau a charm which is lacking in ranges not thus attended. It does not stand boldly forth to be appraised at a single glance; only its higher peaks can be seen, peering over the shoulders of their lesser vanguard and across the mysterious-looking valleys which divide the ranks of this latter.

Except a narrow strip on its high eastern side which falls away to the plains, the whole of this 3,000 feet plateau drains westwards into the basin of the Godavari through the Indravati, Kolab,Macheru and other tributaries of that great river. Some description of the plateau will be found in the accounts in Chapter XV of the various taluks of which it is made up, and it is sufficient to say here that it consists of a table-land of red soil profusely scattered with hundreds of little red hills of remarkable similarity of appearance. In the north, the hills and valleys have long since been denuded of almost all their forest and cultivated, but in the south, especially in the Golgonda taluk, all but the tops of the hills are still covered with heavy forest.

According to the maps, the highest point on this plateau (and therefore in the district) is Deomali hill, seven miles due north of Pottangi and on the edge of the eastern scarp, which is 5,470 feet above the sea. Other well-known heights are Sinkaram (5,300) and Yendrika (5,188), CHAP. I. Hills. which rise head and shoulders above their fellows in the interior of the Pádwa taluk, and Gálikonda ('windy hill,' 5,300 feet) which stands on the edge of the plateau south-west of the former, amid a group of several other notable peaks.

In 1859 this last was examined under orders from Sir Patrick Grant, the Commander-in-Chief of Madras, Galikonda as a sanitarium. to see whether it would make a good sanitarium for the troops serving in the old 'Northern Division' of the Presidency. A committee of five members presided over by Dr. Duncan McPherson, Inspector-General of Hospitals, went up the hill in February of that year to prospect, the country being marked in the maps of that day as unexplored territory. They named the saddle which joins the two crescentic ridges of Gálikonda 'Grant's range,' and selected a site for a sanitarium on an elevated spot 600 feet lower than this and lying 'a little to the west of north (of Gálikonda) and about a mile from the foot of the hill,' which they called (after Lord Harris, then Governor of Madras) 'the Harris valley.' It is in reality less a valley than a shoulder of Gálikonda, and is a little over 4,000 feet above the sea. Government ordered that a party of European soldiers should go up and reside there for a few months to test the climate. A company of 60 Sappers went up in December 1859 to clear the ground and make approaches, and in the March following twenty-one men of the European Veteran Company at Vizagapatam, with two officers, followed them and lived there for three months. But of this party ' only one escaped fever. The men returned subject to frequent relapses aud greatly enfeebled in constitution. Three of them died; two on the hill, one in the way back to Waltair.' It was thought that this melancholy result was partly attributable to the fact that the men were old and worn-out veterans, so a party of the 2nd European L.I. was sent up in their place at the end of May. But only one of these escaped fever. The Sappers, who had remained on the hill at a spot called 'Taylor's knoll,' on the eastern side of the saddle and about 380 feet above the Harris valley, also suffered severely from malaria.

Mr. Fane, the Collector, who had built himself a bungalow on a hillock about 100 feet above Taylor's knoll, said that his servants had escaped; and he thought this was due to their being higher up the hill and having better water. Doubtless, also, the fact that the unfortunate soldiers went through part of the south-west monsoon (the most malarious time of the year) with no better shelter than leaky grass huts had much to do with their sickness. It was next suggested that Kapkonda, a higher hill south-west of Galikonda CHAP. I. Hills. 'having a considerable extent of table-land on the summit, sufficient to encamp an army upon,' might make a better site for the sanitarium, but this was examined and also condemned; and in 1861 it was decided to proceed no further with this unlucky venture. Mr. Fane gave his bungalow to his head sheristadar, Mr. McMurray, in 1865. The remains of his garden and the graves of the two veterans may still be seen on the hill. The Raja of Vizianagram has a coffee estate at Anantagiri, on the way up to Galikonda from the plains, and close by stands the bungalow which Mr. H. G. Turner, Collector from 1881 to 1889, built when he was constructing the Anantagiri ghat (see p. 137) up to this part of the plateau.

West of, and parallel to, this 3,000 feet plateau, and about 1,000 feet below it, The 2,000 feet plateau. lies a table-land which consists of the Jeypore and Naurangpur taluks and is known as 'the 2,000 feet plateau' or 'the Jeypore plateau.' Like its more elevated neighbour, it drains westwards into the Godavari basin through the Kolab, Indravati and other rivers, but at the northern corner it drops down into the valley of the Tel, a tributary of the Mahanadi.

This tract differs altogether from the 3,000 feet plateau in other matters besides altitude. The Malkanagiri taluk. It receives a heavier rainfall, so that the basin of the Indravati and much of Jeypore taluk are covered' with broad sheets of rain-fed paddy instead of dry crops; it is almost level instead of being one mass of hills; and in the north of Naurangpur and the west of Jeypore it contains miles and miles of thick forest, chiefly sal.

At its southern extremity it drops abruptly down to the third plateau—the Malkanagiri taluk—which is another thousand feet lower on an average, and a good deal more than this in its south- western corner. Malkanagiri village is only 641 feet above the sea. This part of the hills is the most sparsely populated tract in the Presidency, and is one great jungle containing thick forest in places but being largely covered with coarse grass ten feet high dotted with scattered saplings. It drains into the Saveri and Sileru, two more tributaries of the Godavari.

All this hilly country, though malarious in the extreme and held in abject dread by the natives of the plains, wins the best affections of almost every European officer whom fate leads to serve within it. The beauty of its scenery, its cooler and more invigorating air, the chances of sport, the absence of the mass of detail and routine which binds an official in the plains hand and foot to his office-table, the infrequency of petty squabbles, intrigue and litigation, the freshness of its cheery highlanders with their curious customs and their unsophisticated ways, CHAP. I. Hills. the scope for action on broad and original lines afforded by an unopened country, and the survival of personal and paternal rule and responsibility, more than compensate for the remoteness, discomforts and unhealthiness of the Vizagapatam hills.

The rivers of the district group themselves into two sets; Rivers. namely, those which flow eastwards through the coastal plain into the Bay of Bengal and those which drain the Ghats and the country west of them westwards into the basin of the Godavari.

Of the former, the first, beginning in the south of the district,is the Varaha-nadi, or ' boar river,' The Varaha. which is so called because it is supposed to have been made by Vishnu during his incarnation as a boar. It rises in the Golgonda hills to the north of Narasapatam and flows south-eastwards, past the sacred fane of Balighattam to the west of Narasapatam, under holy Sanjivikonda,through a deep and narrow gorge in the red range of which that hill is the highest point, across the Sarvasiddhi taluk, and so into the Bay of Bengal at Vatada. Its only noteworthy tributary is the Sarpa-nadi, or Kottakota stream, which fills the natural lake near Kottakota called the Komaravolu ava. Like the other rivers of the Vizagapatam plains, its shallow, sandy bed is dry during the hot weather and no part of it is ever navigable. The irrigation from it (which is referred to on p. 105 below) is of considerable importance.

North of it flows the Sarada-nadi. The Sarada. This rises in the Madgole hills, runs south to Anakapalle, where it is crossed by the trunk road and Madras railway bridges, turns south-west past Kasimkota, and flows into the Bay at Vatada through the same mouth as the Varaha. A channel from it fills the pretty natural lake six miles south of Anakapalle called the Kondakarla ava, which swarms with lotuses, fish and wildfowl. This and the Komaravolu ava are two of the very few real freshwater lakes in the Presidency. The irrigation under it and under the other channels from the Sarada is referred to on p. 105 below. The river is liable to sudden and terrific floods, and the damage it has more than once caused to Anakapalle town is referred to in Chapter VIII below.

The Chittivalasa river. The Chittivalasa (or Bimlipatam) river rises in the slopes of the great Galikonda hill mentioned above and runs nearly south, past historic Padmanabham and busy Chittivalasa (where the trunk road crosses it on a bridge which has twice been swept away) into the Bay at Bimlipatam. The Góstani (also called the Champavati) CHAP. I. Rivers. The Goutami. The Langulya. rises just north of this last and flows in an almost parallel course past Gajapatinagaram into the sea near the Kónada salt-factory.

The Lángulya, called the Nágávali in the upper part of its course, is a perennial stream which has its source among the steep hills of the Ráyagada taluk and the Kálahandi State. It flows nearly due south, past Ráyagada, to within six miles east of Párvatípur; and then turns slightly eastwards and enters the Bay at Mahfuz Bandar, near Chicacole in Ganjám district. For the last twenty miles of its course it forms the boundary between Ganjám and Vizagapatam. The trunk road crosses it at Chicacole on a fine bridge. At Ráyagada it rushes through a narrow passage close under the lee of a wooded hill, and over a most picturesque double fall. The upper part of this is about 20 feet high and 60 yards wide, and the river dashes over a sort of natural anicut, formed by an almost level ridge of rock, into a deep pool below. Issuing from this, it leaps the lower fall, about 30 feet, and swirls through a deep channel strewn and flanked with enormous boulders (about several of which local legends are told) until at length it arrives at a placid reach below. In the storm in the autumn of 1905,when the river was in very high flood, a woman with a baby in her arms, supported by a sort of life-belt of bamboos, was being conveyed across the stream some distance above the falls when she was swept away by the current and, incredible as it may appear to those who see the place when the river is low, was carried right over both these falls and through the maze of boulders below them without injury to herself or the child.

Just below the falls the Nágávali is joined by its first important tributary, the Kumbikóta-gedda, a stream which runs from the west in a deep and narrow gorge and is crossed at Ráyagada by a girder road bridge (see p. 142) standing nearly 100 feet above its bed. Some ten miles higher up the whole body of this stream is forced through a narrow cleft in the rocks across which a man can jump.

Twenty miles below this confluence, at Gumpa, the river receives the Janjhávati, which drains the tangle of little valleys round Náráyanapatnam, and still lower down it is joined by the united streams of the Suvarnamukhi and Végavati, which run from the 3,000 feet plateau in almost parallel courses across Bobbili taluk.

The irrigation from the Nágávali and the Suvarnamukhi, and the dam which it is proposed to throw across the former, are referred to on p. 106 below. The names Nagavali and Langulya are derivod from words meaning ' plough,' CHAP. I. Rivers. and the local legends say that, the river was made by Balarama with that implement. Five shrines have been built upon its banks; namely, those to Patalesvara at Payakapad in the Rayagada taluk; to Somesvara at Gumpa, where the Janjhavati joins it; to Sangamesvara ('the Siva of the confluence') at Sangam, where the Suvarnamukhi flows into it; to Kotesvara at Chicacole; and to Maninagesvara where it enters the sea. At all of these, largely-attended festivals are held at Sivaratri, The Gumpa temple was in great danger in the flood caused by the storm at the end of 1905. The pujari offered incessant and unwearying oblations, and at last the river fell.

The Vamsadhdra, The Vamsadhara. so called from the bamboo (vamsa) which fringes its banks, rises in the extreme north of the Bissamkatak taluk and passes southwards, through the centre of Gunupur, into Ganjam. It belongs rather to the latter district than to Vizagapatam.

Of the second group of the rivers of the district, The T61. namely those which drain the Ghats and the country west of them, the northern-most of all, the Tel, similarly belongs rather to Bengal than to Madras. It merely receives the drainage of the northern corner of Naurangpur taluk and forms for some distance its northern boundary. The river dries up in the hot weather, but in the rains it would probably serve for timber- floating if the falls at the point where it drops down from the 2,000 feet plateau could be somewhat improved.

The next river to the south, the Indravati, The Indravati. rises in the jungles of Kalahandi, winds in a very zig-zag course from east to west across the Naurangpur taluk a couple of miles south of Naurangpur village, and thence runs into Bastar State (receiving at the boundary the Bhaskel, which drains part of north Naurangpur),passes to the north of Jagdalpur, the capital of Bastar, over the beautiful Chittrakota falls 25 miles further west, and so eventually into the Godavari. In the Naurangpur taluk it flows in a deep silent stream which, at the point where it is crossed by the main road northwards from Jeypore, is in flood time 465 feet wide and 24 feet deep. Though a ferry is maintained here, the river (which is never dry) is at present a most formidable obstacle to all traffic passing north and south. In Bastar the current is also quiet up to the Chittrakota falls, but thereafter the bed is full of rocks and a succession of rapids, and navigation and timber-floating are alike almost impossible. Passing further southwards down the 2,000 feet plateau, CHAP. I. Rivers. The Kolab and Saveri. the next river of importance is the Kolab. This rises near Sinkaram hill on the 3,000 feet plateau, flows north-west in a very winding bed, drops rapidly down to the 2,000 feet plateau not far south of Jeypore, holds on the same course for another 20 or 30 miles and then suddenly doubles back and runs nearly south. For a time it forms the frontier between Jeypore and Bastar, and then it turns south into the former, through a gorge in the wild hills west of Ramagiri which are called the Tulsi Dangari range. As it issues from this, it falls about 40 feet into a large pool, 12 or 14 feet deep, into which, in days gone by, witches used to be thrown with a stone round their necks. Turning west again, and passing Salimi, the Kolab flows into Bastar, past Sunkam, and at last again divides this State from Jeypore, forming the western boundary of Malkanagiri taluk for many miles. In this last part of its course it is called the Saveri or Sabari, and is joined by the Poteru, which drains the centre of Malkanagiri taluk. At Motu,at the extreme south-western corner of that taluk it meets the Sileru referred to below, and the two pass out of Vizagapatam into Godavari and fall into the Godavari river 25 miles further down.

This stream and the Indravati, draining as they do a country which receives a heavy rainfall and is often covered with forest,are two of the most important of all the tributaries of the Godavari. They are perennial, and contribute almost the whole of the water which is used for second-crop cultivation in the delta of that river.

In 1856 Mr. Tuke went 132 miles up the Saveri from its confluence with the Godavari and his detailed account of it will be found in Lieutenant Haig's Report on the navigability of the Godavari (Madras, 1856). He pronounced it navigable during parts of the monsoon, by small boats and with difficulty, (or the first 25 miles, that is, to just below Motu. But he considered that above that point up to Sunkam (near which a huge barrier of rock 600 yards long with a drop of 50 or 60 feet causes a mighty rapid) the river was certainly not navigable by boats at any time of the year, being a maze of rocks, shoals, islands and strong currents. Even wood could only be floated down during certain short seasons and with great difficulty. From Sunkam to Salimi, however, the stream is quieter and timber could come down it.

The Macheru or Machkand ('fish river') The Sileru. rises in the Madgole hills on the 3,0O0 feet plateau and at first runs nearly north along a very meandering course, passing close under Yendrika hill (the curious fish-pool near here is described on p. 285 below) CHAP. I. Rivers. and through the wide Padwa valley. When about 35 miles south of Jeypore it winds westwards along the edge of the plateau, as if looking for a way down through the low hills which fringe this there, and then suddenly turns at a sharp angle to the south-west down a steep descent. The drop changes a somewhat sluggish river flowing between banks of red earth into a series of rapids foaming between enormous masses of boulders. Three miles from the bend, about the same distance south of Badigada, and 26 miles from the nearest road, the descent is barred by a huge barrier of rock shut in on either side by walls of rock two or three hundred feet high. Below this is a sheer abyss of 480 feet, over which the river flings itself into a boiling pool half hidden by dense clouds of spray on which the sunlight throws the brightest of rainbows. In the dry season it is possible to scramble to the edge of the abyss and look straight down through the spray into the great pool beneath, while from beneath the scene is the most impressive in all the district. Below these falls, which are the highest in the Presidency, the river flows south-westwards in a deep and gloomy gorge, hemmed in on both sides by rock walls hundreds of feet high, into which it is impossible to descend and which is said to continue for many miles.1^[1]

This slowly widens until at Kondakamberu, 32 miles as the crow flies from the falls, it has become a narrow valley shut in by high hills. A few miles further on the river, which is now called the Sileru ('rocky stream') and still runs at the bottom of a deep hollow in the mountains, forms the boundary between Malkanagiri taluk and the Godavari district and flows on, abounding in mahseer and crocodiles, until at Motu it, joins the Saveri. 'Nothing, can exceed the extreme beauty of this lonely river, with its bamboo-covered banks, its deep, long reaches of water, its falls, its grass-covered islets and its rushing clear water. From the grand fall at Badigada to the gorge where it emerges from the Kondakamberu level, it would not be difficult to pole a boat; but this gorge altogether prevents boats from coming up from Motu, and indeed it is equally destructive of all timber-floating operations.'

Soils. The soils of the district have been scientifically classified only in the three Government taluks, in which alone regular settlement operations have been conducted. There they divide themselves into the two main groups of red ferruginous and black, which are again subdivided into clays, loams and sands. CHAP. I. Soils. The figures sub-joined show the percentage of the assessed area of each of the three taluks which is covered with these different kinds of earths:—

Description of soil.			Pálkonda taluk.	Golgonda taluk.	Sarvasiddhi taluk.	Total of the three taluks.
Red	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	Loam	41.7	51.5	53.1	49.0
		Sand	16.3	38.5	15.1	25.5
Total			58.0	90.0	68.2	74.5
Black	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	Clay	13.9	2.7	14.8	9.3
		Loam	24.9	7.3	17.0	15.2
		Sand	3.2	...	...	1.0
Total			42.0	10.0	31.8	25.5
Total			100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

It will be noticed that three-fourths of them consist of red soils and only one-fourth of the richer black earths; that the loams (the most fertile of the subdivisions for wet crops) are not uncommon; that a third of the red land is of the sandy, the least fertile, variety; and that Pálkonda and Sarvasiddhi are far more favoured than Golgonda, in which last nine-tenths of the soil is of the red kinds. This final paint is clearly brought out by the figures of assessment given on p. 100 below, which show that only one-eighth of the assessed dry land in Golgonda is rated at more than Re. 1 per acre and less than one-fourth of the wet land at more than Rs. 4-8-0. The black soil occurs chiefly in the alluvial valleys of the streams and rivers, the higher land being usually red.

Though no accurate figures can be quoted, it may be stated in general terms that (except in these valleys) the prevailing soil of the whole of the plains, of the Párvatipur division, and of the 3,000 feet plateau is red, while on the 2,000 feet plateau beyond it the black soils become commoner. The red earth is often of the most vivid colour and adds not a little, by its contrast with the green trees and crops, to the picturesqueness of the district.

The rainfall in Vizagapatam is referred to in some detail in Climate, Chapter VIII (p. 140) below. Climate. Rainfall. The average fall in the plains is 41 inches and in the Agency, which receives more of the south-west monsoon, 57 inches. Jeypore gets as much as 75 inches, while some stations on the coast receive less than 35.

The temperature is officially recorded only at Waltair, though meteorological observations of much value are made at the G. V. Jagga Rao observatory at Vizagapatam referred to on p. 382 below. The average maxima and minima and the mean for each month and for the whole year registered at the former station are shown in degrees Fahrenheit in the margin. The annual mean (^2°) is rather higher than that of Gopalpur in the next district to the north (79"-6), and rather lower than that of Cocanada, the next recording- station to the south (82°-l); but the average maxima in the three hottest mouths (April, May and June), though five degrees in excess of those at Gopalpur, are from two to six degrees below those of Cocanada. Waltair is damp, but less so than Cocanada and much less than Gopalpur, the annual mean humidity at the three places being respectively 72-6, 74-6 and 81 'O. The moistest part of the year is the middle of September and the driest the middle of December. . From November to February Waltair is pleasant enough, though like many seaside places in the tropics it is relaxing. The station has one great advantage which figures do not exhibit; namely, that it stands 200 feet above the sea, and so gets all the air there is, and that the Dolphin's Nose headland to the south of it deflects the debilitating long-shore wind and turns it into a sea-breeze. Waltair is cooler than Vizianagram, and far cooler than either Purvatipur or Narasapatam, both of which are shut off from the sea-breoze by low hills; but in the more relaxing months it is a less healthy place of residence than the drier stations further inland, such as Vizianagram or Bobbili.

The climate and temperature of the hilly parts of the district naturally differ altogether from those of the plains. Statistics are not available, but in the cold months on the 8,000 feet plateau fires and two blankets are required at night and the days are never really hot. The malaria which infests most of this country and others of the more virulent diseases of the district are referred to in Chapter IX below. No detailed account of the geology of the district has yet been published.1^[2] CHAP. I. Geology. The fundamental rocks are all gneisses and plutonic igneous rocks of the archtean group. They outcrop in lines running mainly from north-east to south-west, which direction determines that of the chief plateaus and minor hill ranges. The district may be divided geologically into four parallel zones; namely, (i) the 2,000 feet plateau in the north-west, composed of the older sub-group of archean gneisses, namely biotite and horn-blende mixed gneiss with layers of steatite, some younger diabase dykes (almost the only dykes in all the district) and a few outliers of Cuddapah quartzites with some crystalline limestone,

(ii) the north-west portion of the 3,000 feet plateau, made up of bands of the younger arcliaean sub-group of khondalite and intrusive bands of charnockite,

(iii) the south-east part of the same plateau, consisting of more khondalite (with local beds of iron and manganese ore and crystalline limestone) and bands of charnockite again and coarse porphyritic biotite gneissose granite, and

(iv) a coastward low-level zone containing minor ridges composed almost exclusively of yet more khondalite with a few bands of charnockite and gneissose granite.

In these last rocks occur the manganese deposits mentioned below. The most obvious characteristic of the gneisses is the number of brown or purple-brown iron garnets which are scattered through them. White quartzose gneiss streaks the surface of parts of the country, especially between Vizagapatam and Vizianagram, with conspicuous reefs and ridges, but it does not occur in true veins and is not auriferous.

The surface rocks include horizontal plateaus of high-level pisolitic laterite some 80 feet thick at an elevation of from 3,500 to 4,000 feet above the sea, chiefly to the north of Koraput and spreading out in the direction of the Kdlahandi State. This laterite, which has been thought to be a sedimentary deposit laid down in water, is limited to a fairly constant level, and surrounds the hills like a belt of shore through which the bare rocks, which were perhaps islands in the lateritic age, raise themselves. It contains much hydrated alumina and may possibly prove of value as an ore of aluminium. Other recent deposits include the younger alluvium of the plains, an older red lateritic loam and the blown sands of the coast, both of which latter are very noticeable at Waltair.

Chap. I. Minerals.The most important, industrially, of the minerals of the district is manganese ore. The mining of this is referred to on p. 125 below. Manganese. Iron.In many villages in the Umarkót, Kótapád, Rámagiri and Koraput tánas of the Jeypore estate iron ore is rudely smelted by the natives in the usual vray for the manufacture of implements and tools, but apparently no large or continuous out-crop of ore exists.

Graphite.Graphite is commonly used for giving a finish to the ordinary earthen pots of the district. It is said to be found in the Mérangi, Kásipuram and Sálúr zamindaris and at a spot seven miles to the north-east of Narasapatam, but no clear account of its distribution or qualities has yet been published and all that can be said is that it has never yet been exploited with commercial success.

Limestone.The crystalline limestone at Guptésvara and the Borra Cave is referred to in the accounts of those places on pp. 260 and 285.At the former the Koláb cuts its way through beds of grey, argillaceous limestone which in some spots has been dissolved away by the running water and formed into fantastic pillars, bloes perchés, circular caverns and wide arches.

Steatite.Coarse grey steatite (potstone) outcrops at numerous points west and south-west of Jeypore, and at Ontagaon, three miles from that town, is quarried for buildings and for the manufacture of images of the Hindu gods. It also occurs on the road between Boipariguda and Rámagiri, and on the Malkanagiri road, four or five miles south of the Kollar bungalow.

Sapphirine.Sapphirine, which hitherto has been found only at Fiskernās on the west coast of Greenland, was discovered by Mr. Middlemiss 1½ miles south-south-west of Pádéru on the bridle-path to Gangaráz Mádgole.

A meteorite.On the 23rd January 1870 a meteorite fell in the village of Nedagolla, five miles south of Párvatipur. It was rescued from the villagers, who had put it in their temple and were doing worship to it, by Colonel Saxton of the Topographical Survey, and was found to be a meteoric iron of 10 lb. weight.1^[3] Stony meteorites are very common, but this was the first iron one known in peninsular India. A second, weighing 35 lb.,was discovered (near Kodaikanal) in 1899. The flora of the Vizagapatam district may be taken as typical of the Northern Circars generally. It is not possible to separate it in its character from that of Ganjám on the north and Gódávari on the south. chap. I. Flora.1^[4] Only in the possession of a great river and its irrigated delta is the latter district peculiar. In this region there is however a gradual transition from north to south, a gradual dying out of the northern forms as we proceed along the Eastern Gháts to their southern termination in the Gódávari gorges.

Comparatively little collecting has been done in the district. There are no records of its having been visited by any botanist of note in the past and we are dependent for exact details on a short collecting tour made through several taluks in the year 1900. Sufficient information was then got together for a brief statement on the flora and the following notes have been put together.

As in most parts of the Coromandel coast, in passing inland from the sea we meet with a series of well-defined geographical areas, and each of these has a different set of plants distinguishing it, while others are evenly distributed from the sea-side to the hills. The plains flora possesses little of interest, as it is practically the same for the greater part of the Madras coast. In it we can separate the sea-side flora, the salt-marsh plants and the dry scrub-jungle. Wherever cultivation exists, on the other hand, we have an assemblage of weeds, shrubs and climbers which may be met with from Tuticorin to Bengal, including a number of exotic plants introduced from various parts of the tropics.

On the sea coast we meet with the sandbinders such as Spinifex squarrosus, a thorny grass of great size, widely spreading over the beach, and whose ball-like flowering heads break off and roll before the wind, dropping their seeds in favourable spots; Ipomaea biloba, a 'convolvulus' with brightly-coloured, large, pink flowers, which sends out long streamers over the low sand hills; Launcea pinnatifida, a small plant with dandelion-like flowers, also a sandbinder with a complex network of branches,Spermacoce hispida, Lippia nodifiora, Hydrophylax maritima, Ipomaea tridentata and Phaseolus trilobus. The salt marshes may be searched for Suaeda nudiflora, Salicornia brachiata, Sesuvium Portulacastrum and other succulents. It is a curious fact that the plants growing in situations with abundant salt so frequently share this fleshy character with those of very dry regions. The great cultivated plain of the district teems with the usual plants of the Coromandel coast, finding place on the bunds separating the fields, in the hedges and waste places.chap. I. Flora.Small herbs such as Sphxranthus indicus, Oldenlandias, Bonnayas, Coldenia pocumbens, various species of Heliotropium, Aristolochia indica, Cleomes; hedge plants and climbers such as various species of Vitis, Dregea volubilis, Tragia involucrata, Modecca Wightiana, and such shrubby plants as have been able to resist the cultivator's efforts at clearing the original scrub forests. This flora of cultivation presents a great mass of diverse species, of great use to the amateur but of little interest to the explorer. Here may be met representatives of all the chief orders of Indian plants, a veritable botanical garden laid out for the study of the beginner.

The scrub jungle is, as usual, more interesting. We have a great collection of drought-resisting or xerophytic forms which have no end of contrivances by which they have adapted themselves to the severity of the climate and the scarcity of water. Broadly speaking, we may divide these into the dry and thorny plants with little leaf surface and much hard stem frequently covered with thorns, and the succulents where the whole plant surface has been reduced to a minimum and is filled with fleshy tissue with nauseous contents. A. double purpose is fulfilled by these characters, diminution of the evaporation of water and resistance to the onslaughts of the predatory goal. It is well to take note of these facts in botanical rambles, and special clothing is needed for collectors in these parts. The following plants may be looked for in the scrub jungle: low-growing specimens of Cassia Fistula with brilliant tresses of yellow flowers, thorny Acacias and dwarf Albizzias, and the closely allied Dichrostachys cinerea with its bright spikes of half -yellow, half-pink flowers, stunted trees of Ohloroxylon Swietenia (satinwood) with rough bark and delicate foliage, the sweet-scented Glycosmis pentaphylla, Maba huxifolia, Oapparis sepiaria,Plerobium indicum with beautiful white racemes and gaily painted fruits guarded, however, by wait-a-bit thorns, Asparagus racemosus, a typical 'bridal' plant with its finely divided 'leaves' and sprays of minute white flowers, Barleria Prionitis, Dodonxa viscosa Hibiscus micranthus, Wnltheria indica, Erythroxylan monorynum, Cassia auriculata, Randia dumetion. Less abundant are Gmelina arborea, Dalbergia, rubiginosa, Elrodendron glucom, Ochua squarrosa, Polyalthia cerasoides, Elytraria cronata, Olax scandens(parasitic on the roots of other trees), Diospyros montana, Aristolochia bracteala, and Streblus asper. Here and there may be discovered the bushy Phyllankus pinnata, chap. I. Flora. a gregarious plant which covers the ground with delicate green almost to the exclusion of all other vegetation and is especially interesting as having evaded the careful compilers of Hooker's Flora. And, generally scattered over the ground, may be found Asclepiad succulents such as Boucerosia and Caralluna, and 'lilies' such as Urginea and paneratium, while that strange child of the tropics, Gloriosa superba, a sprawling climber, raises its gorgeous, spotted red and yellow flowers from the midst of the most unpromising thorns. The struggle for existence in such a jungle is of the fiercest and there appears to be less foothold for the parasitic plants of the mistletoe order. Here and there various species of Loranthus may be met with, but the dodder-like Cassytha filiformis is everywhere at home on the parched vegetation.

The rocky gullies are of greater interest, and may be explored by the adventurous for Calycopeteris floribunda, Gardenia latifolia with great white-scented flowers which would grace any English green-house, Combretum ovalifolium and Symphorema involucratum with pretty parachute-like papery bracts.

It is only when the hills are approached that the flora becomes interesting to the scientific botanist, and it is just here that we are confronted with an unexplored country. The Eastern Gháts are typically developed in this district and the survey of their untracked fastnesses will certainly repay a careful examination. Here we meet with the outliers of the flora of the great central plateau of India and the tops of the highest peaks show small collections of plants which have strayed, no one knows how, from the plains of Bengal or even the far-off Himalayas.

Among the lower hills are found such plants as the following:— Holarrhena antidysenterica, Toddalia aculeata, various Randias, Acalypha alnifolia, Grewia hirsuta, G. orbiculata, G.salvifoba, G.tilia folia, G.asiatica, Alangium Lamarckiiy Zisypus xylopyrus, Diospyros montana, Terminalia belerica, T.Chebula,Celastrus paniculata, Zehneria unibellata, Dendrocalanus strictus,Carissa macrophylla, Phylianthus Emblica, Strychnos potatorum,Vitis Linnti, Stemona taberosa, Glossocardia linearifolia,Anogeissus acumnata, and, higher up, Minusops Elengi, Hemacyclea sepiaria, Bassia latifolia whose thick, white, fleshy flowers produce both sugar when dried and spirit when distilled, Albizzia odoratissima, Eagle Marmelos and Xylia dolabriformis. Here too we approach the edge of the sál forest, Shorea robusta. This tree in the north of Ganjám has monopolised large areas of forest land in the hills and approaches to within thirty miles of the coast, but the sál recedes further and further inland as we pass to the south. chap. I. Flora. The value of sál timber is well known as producing the most indestructible railway sleepers. Other interesting plants which may be sought for in the Eastern Gháts are the following:—

Woodfordia fiorihunda, Indigofera pulchella, Anogeissus latifolia,Pterocarpus Marsupium, Martynia diandra (an introduced American weed with handsome flowers and clawlike fruits), Atylosia crassa,Oroxylum indicum, Bauhinia variegata, B. purpurea, B. Vahlii, Butca superba, Vcntilogo calyculata, Terminalia tomentosa, Rhinacanthus communis, Pimpinella Heyneana, Desmodium Cephalotes,D. gyrans, D. pulchellum, Ongeinia dalbergioides, Stercalia urens, Cochlospermum Gossypium, Hymenodictyou excelsum, Coffea benjalensis (found in the Ganjam Maliahs), Adhatoda, Vasaca, Micromelum pubescens, Pogostemon plectranthoides, Hypericum japonicum,Acacia concinna, Clematis smilacifolia, Embelia robusta, Justicia Betonica Thespesia Lanpas, Cansjera Rheedii (parasitic on the roots of other trees), Androsace saxifragxfolia (a small herb of the Gangetic plain but recently found in the Ganjám hills), Dillenia pentagyna, Baliospermum axillare, Flemingia Chappar,Holoptelea integrifolia, Albizzia stpulata, &c.,&e.

In conclusion a note may be added as to tHe assemblages of plants to be found on the more isolated peaks. In Gánjam, close to the Vizagapatam border, the great mass of Mahéndragiri raises its 5,000 feet, and, thanks to the presence of rest houses, has been explored at various times with interesting results. Almost every peak of the Eastern Ghats would repay a visit. Even lesser heights are of interest, as will be seen from the following small collection taken on the summit of Karakakonda, a 2,000 feet hill in the Golgonda taluk of Vizagapatam: Glossocardia linearifolia, Sauropus quadrangularis, Chlorophytum altenuatum,Olax nana, Buettneria herbacea, Tylophora macrantha, T. rotundifolia Ischcemum angustifolium, Grewia dwarf near liliafolia, Grewia dwarf near salvifolia. Of these, Glssocardia linearifolia is a Central Indian plant, Sauropus quadrangularis is not found south of the Gódávari and may be considered a rare plant, Chlorophytum attenuatum belongs to the Western Gháts, Olax nana is only recorded in Hooker's Flora as occurring in the 'hot valleys of the Western Himalayas.' Buettneria herbacea, although not uncommon on out of the way hills, is a most interesting and peculiar little plant. Tylophora macrantha is a, Nilgiri plant, T. rotundifolia is a North and Central Indian plant but is also recorded from the Ánaimalais, Ischcemum angustifolium is not reported further south than Central India. The dwarf Grewias are more interesting still. According to current opinion they must be regarded as species now to science. They seem rather to be derivatives from species of the neighbourhood, i.e., tilaefolia and salvifolia, chap. I. Flora. rendered permanently dwarf hy the recurrence of annual forest fires. Arising from forms with well defined tree-like stems, they have lost this character but acquired an underground rootstock from which flowering shoots are sent up after each rainy season, but which fruit and wither before the period of grass burning. It is possible that Olax nana has been derived in the same way from Olax scandens.

Fauna. Domestic animals; cattle. The cattle of the district belong to no special local variety and no particular care is taken to improve them by judicious breeding. At the two shows which the District Agricultural Association has held up to date, the class of the exhibits was exceedingly high, but the majority of the prize-winners appear to have possessed a strain of the Nellore blood. The ordinary plough and milch cattle are bred locally or in some cases in the southern taluks are imported from Gódávari. The thousands of pack-cattle used by the Brinjáris in their trade with the interior are of the most ordinary variety. Two of the most important cattle-fairs on the plains are those at Kottavalasa and Alamanda in the Srungavarapukota taluk and at Tummapála just north of Anakápalle.

The Vizagapatam buffaloes, however, are remarkable animals of great size, bone and power. There are two varieties of them,namely, a light-coloured animal with very long, straight horns,which is indigenous, and a darker and more hairy breed, the horns of which are short and curve upwards. The latter, which are locally known as Kási (Benares) buffaloes, come from the Ganjám district and are largely bought at the fairs at Santakaviti and Sitarámpuram in Pálkonda taluk. Both these varieties are exceedingly useful, doing much of the cultivation in the heavier soils and dragging almost all the grain-carts which pour down in thousands from the Jeypore country to the plains whenever the price of food-stuffs is high in the latter. They are not used for pack-work, as they are such slow walkers.

The sheep of the plains are of the usual hairy brown and white breed, Sheep. but in parts of the Agency is found another variety called ráchamanda, which often produces two lambs at a birth and has a short coarse fleece. Though thousands of blankets are required annually by the hill people, the woolly sheep of the Deccan is unknown and no blankets are manufactured locally.

Goats. On thee plains the ordinary long-legged brown goats are numerous. In some parts of the hill taluks a breed exists which, if kept sheltered from cold and wet, brings forth three kids at a time. Big game is varied and on the whole plentiful, chap. I. Fauna. but it is practically confined to the wilder portions of the Agency, where no one but the local officers can command transport, supplies or beaters and where malaria is ever present. Along the southern part of the coast, and also inland, black-buck are fairly plentiful and there are some pig, barking deer- and spotted deer, but no other game worth mention exists.Game. The hills contain wild buffalo (found nowhere else in this Presidency), bison (gaur), spotted, swamp, ravine, and barking deer, sambhur, nilghai and four-horned antelope, as well as pig, bears, leopards and tigers. The flesli of the pig is highly esteemed by many of the hill people as an aphrodisiac, and fetches high prices. The bears, as elsewhere, are very fond of the mohwa flower, and often get extremely drunk upon it. Tigers used to be a perfect pest. The reports of oven twenty years ago are full of acconuts of the panics caused by man-eaters (especially in the Golgonda Agency), which the natives picturesquely called the tiger fitúris, or ' tiger rebellions.' Some of these brutes became extraordinarily bold.People were frequently carried off in broad daylight in the villages; on one occasion a woman was taken out of her walled backyard; on another a constable forming one of a guard escorting about a hundred people back from market was killed; and one tiger used even to claw down the doors of the houses to get at the inmates. Between June 1881 and March 1883, 133 persons were killed in the Nandapuram and Pádwa taluks alone. In their terror, the people fled from their villages, avoided the gháts and left whole tracts depopulated. In Golgonda the evil was increased by the current superstition that any one who killed a tiger would come out all over stripes. One officer tried to persuade the people that an infallible safeguard against the latter disaster was to stroke one's nose slowly with the dead tiger's tail, and in 1884 a number of old police carbines were distributed among the hill men to enable them to meet the foe on more equal terms.

The most famous tiger of recent times was the Tentulakunti man-eater in the south of Naurangpur, which was credited with having killed 200 persons before it was at length slain by Mr. H. D. Taylor, I.C.S., then in charge of Jeypore estate during the Mahárája's minority.

The Government reward for tigers is Rs. 100, or more than in any other district, and these animals are now almost scarce. In the Golgonda hills the professional shikaris and skin-hunters turned the carbines supplied to them against the deer-tribe and the bison, regardless of sex and age; and they shot the latter (over the salt-licks) in such numbers that it was reported that 'the whole country was dotted over with bison bones' and it became necessary to extend the game rules to the chief reserves Fauna. to stop the wholesale slaughter which was proceeding. chap. I. Fauna. These rules have also been extended to some of the Palkonda reserves. In Jeypore the game is much harried by the annual beats in the month of Chaitra (see p. 72), when the whole able-bodied male population turns out and remains out. sometimes for days together, until it has succeeded in killing some animal and so in avoiding the rough reception accorded by the womenfolk to the unsuccessful. One haunch of venison goes to the man who first hits the animal and the other to the headman of the village in which it dies.

The best small-game shooting on the plains is afforded by the duck and teal. Of the former, the red-headed pochard and the gadwall are the commonest kinds. Snipe and quail are comparatively scarce. Peafowl are common all over the hills and the Savaras sometimes catch them by chasing them from side to side of a steep, narrow valley until they are exhausted. Of the rarer game-birds, woodcock have been seen round Pádéru, and in the hills the Imperial pigeon is not uncommon and a brown pigeon with a white head is seen now and again.

1. 1 From a description kindly supplied by Mr. H. A. B. Vernon I.C.S. The height of the falls was taken by Mr. H. G. Turner with an aneroid.
2. 1 The following pablications of the Geological Survey of India refer to the subject:—Records, xix, pt. 3; xxxi, pt. 1; xxxii, pt. 2; xxxiiii pt. 2; and the General Reports for 1899-1900 and 1902-03.
3. 1 Progs. of R.A.S.B., 1870, 64.
4. 1 This section has been kindly contributed by Mr. C. A. Barber, Government Botanist.