Vizagapatam/Gazetteer/Vizagapatam Taluk
VIZAGAPATAM TALUK.
Vizagapatam is the smallest taluk in the district and, next to the ordinary tracts in Pálkonda, the most densely populated. Its inhabitants increased at a relatively higher rate than those of any other taluk both in the decade 1891-1901 and in the thirty years ending with 1901. It contains more Musalmans and Christians than any other taluk, and its people are also better educated than those of any other. It is a picturesque tract. The coast line is broken by the bold headland called the Dolphin's Nose (1,174 feet above the sea), the hills which run down to the shore by Lawson's Bay, just north of Waltair, and the Sugar-loaf hill which separates this from the bay just beyond it; and inland stands the Simháchalam range of rounded red hills and its continuation northward towards Bimlipatam. The Simháchalam temple and the head-quarters are the chief places of interest within the taluk.
Simháchalam ('the lion hill'), which rises to about 800 feet above the sea, stands just north of Vizagapatam. Near the top of the north side of it, in a wooded hollow surrounded by a wide circle of higher ground, is the temple to Narasimha, the man-lion incarnation of Vishnu, which gives the hill its name. This is the most famous, richest, and best sculptured shrine in Vizagapatam, and in its honour numbers of the people of the district are named Simháchalam, Simhádri, Narasimha and so on. From the hollow in which it stands, a deep glen, watered by a rivulet and clothed with many trees in striking contrast to the bare flanks of the rest of the hill, runs down to the foot of the northern slope, where, about ten miles by road from Vizagapatam, is a rose-garden which h traditionally declared 1[1] to have been planted by the well-known Sitaráma Rázu of Vizianagram and is watered from the rivulet. The Rájas of Vizianagram have been wardens of the shrine for over two centuries and have endowed it with land worth some Rs. 30,000 per annum.
The way up to the temple runs along the glen from near the rose-garden, through terraced fields of pine-apples dotted with mango, jack and other trees. It passes up a broad flight of wellkept stone steps, over a thousand in number, on either side of which trees have been planted to give shade and a rill runs in a stone channel to refresh weary pilgrims. At frequent intervals are images of the various Hindu gods in little niches, and on festival days the steps are lighted from top to bottom. The steps eventually reach the narrow mouth of the glen, and here the path is barred by a bold portal called Hanumán's gate, by the side of which the rivulet which passes clown the glen is led into two pools where pilgrims bathe before they continue the ascent. This gate was apparently part of the fortifications which in former days guarded the temple and other remains of which may be traced on the high ground surrounding it. Tradition says that these included as many as 24 bastions.
Passing through Hanumán's gate, the pilgrim traverses a narrow part of the glen where the rivulet is led through pipes and channels over several artificial cascades surrounded by more sculptures of the gods, and at length reaches the amphitheatre in which, on a terrace partly cut out of the hill-side, stands the temple itself.
The local sthala purána contains a mythical account of the foundation of the building which relates the well-known story of how the demon Hiranya-Kasyapa, furious with his son Prahláda's devotion to his pet aversion Vishnu, had the boy thrown into the sea and Simhachálam hill placed on top of him; how Vishnu in his man-lion incarnation went to the youth's rescue, stood on one side of the hill and tipped it up so that the boy could crawl out on the other; and how Prahláda in his gratitude founded this shrine.
The exact age of the temple is not known, but it contains an inscription, dated as far back as 1098-99 A.D., of the Chóla king: Kulóttunga I who conquered the Kalinga territories (see p. 27), and it must thus have been a place of importance even then. Another inscription shows that a queen of the Velanándu chief Gonka III (1137-56) covered the image with gold; a third says that the Eastern Ganga king Narasimha I built the central shrine, the mukhamandapam, the nátyamandapam, and the enclosing verandah in black stone in 1267-68; and the many other grants inscribed on its walls (the Government Epigraphist's lists for 1.899 give no less than 125 of these) make it a regular repository of the history of the district. The records left here by the victorious Krishna Déva of Vijayanagar have been referred to on p. 28 above.
Architecturally the temple apparently deserves high praise.Europeans are not admitted within the central enclosure, but this is said to contain a square shrine surmounted by a high tower, a portico in front with a smaller tower above it, a square sixteen
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scenes from the Vaishnavite puránas. These are doubtless the work of the Narasimha I referred to above. Much of the carving is mutilated (by Muhammadan conquerors, it is said) and much more has been covered over with a thick coat of plaster at the order, it is Locally declared, of a Rája of Vizianagram, whose wife was disgusted at its indecencies. One of the pillars is called the kappam stambham or 'tribute pillar.' It is credited with great powers of caring cattle- disease and granting children, and the right to collect the numerous tributes paid to it in consequence is annually sold by auction. In the verandah is a stone car with stone wheels and prancing stone horses. The image of the god is small and is kept covered with an unctuous preparation of sandal paste. Once a year, in May, this is removed with much ceremony at the festival called Chandanayátra.
Outside this inner enclosure there is little worthy of note except the excellent nátyamandapam on the north side of the temple, where the god's marriage is performed and which is also the work of Narasimha I. This is supported by 96 pillars of black stone, arranged in sixteen rows of six each, which are more delicately carved than any others in the temple, are all different in the details of their design, and yet avoid incongruity of effect by adhering to one general type — -especially in their capitals, which are usually of the inverted-lotus shape.
Vizagapatam: The head-quarters of the taluk and district and a municipality of 40,892 inhabitants. The municipal limits (see the map attached) include the suburb of Waltair, where the European officials reside and several of the zamindars of the district have bungalows. The history and achievements of the municipal council have already been referred to on p. 215 above; the medical and educational institutions in the town are mentioned in Chapters IX and X respectively; its arts and industries in Chapter VI; and its jail in Chapter XIII. Besides the officers usually found at a district head-quarters, the place is the station of a Superintending Engineer, Conservator of Forests,Deputy Commissioner of Salt, Abkári and Customs, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Inspector of Schools, Inspectress of Girls' Schools and Port Officer, and is the head-quarters of the Bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Vizagapatam and of sections of both the Madras and Bengal- Nagpur railways.
The town is built along the shore of a wide bay, five miles across, which is bounded on the south by the Dolphin's Nose headland already mentioned and on the north by a small point which separates it from the picturesque little cove called Lawson's Bay after the Patrick Lawson, Commander of the Lord Hobart indiaman, who lies buried (1820) in the old cemetery. Vizagapatam proper lies at the southern end of this bay and Waltair at the northern, and between them, along the shore, runs a fine road which opens up a whole series of splendid (but so far greatly neglected) building sites.
Immediately north of the Dolphin's Nose is a small river called the Upputeru ('salt river') which drains a land-locked tidal swamp four square miles in extent and the land behind it,and flows to the sea over a sandy bar of the usual kind. This swamp, which (see the map) is crossed by the railway line leading to the port, runs along the west side of Vizagapatam town and crowds it into a narrow triangle at the apex of which is a small eminence called Ross' Hill and at its base a higher and larger height formed of rock but covered with blown sand. Close under the west side of this latter runs the main bazaar-street leading north-eastwards to Waltair, a clean, bright, well-built line of houses wearing a prosperous air.
Waltair, which includes not only the native village of that name, but all the area between ' Rock House' on the map and the northern extremity of the municipality, is built on a stretch of very broken ground which runs up to about 250 feet above the sea and is partly barren, rocky soil dotted with black boulders and stunted scrub and partly a curious vivid red earth. Towards the sea, the latter has been worn by the streams which cross it (see the map) into a series of impassable crevasses and gullies separated from one another by hummocks and pinnacles of fantastic shapes. The scene from this high ground is probably the most beautiful on the east coast of India. The sombre purples of the Dolphin's Nose on the south, the vivid chrome-yellow of the blown sand on the hill above Vizagapatam, the olive-coloured slopes of the scrub-covered heights scattered with glossy apple-green palmyras, the bright red soil running down to the sea and the dark trees at the northern end of the bay, backed as they all are by the brilliant turquoise of the Bay with its white edge of breakers, make up an unrivalled blaze of colour. The climate and temperature of this part of the place have already been referred to (p. 14). Among natives its air is reputed to be beneficial in lung troubles; and it is threatened in consequence with an invasion of Bengalis, who have already occupied several of its better houses. The Dolphin's Nose is known to the natives as 'Blackmore's hill.' In 1801 Captain Thomas Blackmore, of the Artillery stationed at Vizagapatam, obtained a grant from the Company for 44 acres of land on the hill (on which,'some years before,' he had built a house) and also permission to 'occupy, enclose and embellish the declivity of the hill next the sea.' This house was perhaps the building of which the ruins still stand on the very top of the hill near the banyan tree. The remains of foundations by the neighbouring flagstaff seem to show that there was also once a battery there, and from this were perhaps taken the ten old cannon which have been used to anchor the guy-ropes of the flagstaff and ornament the doorway of the enclosure round it. It is stated 1[2] ' that there was once a light-house here, and that it was blown down in the cyclone of 1876 referred to on p. 154. Lower down the hill, on the side facing the town, are the ruins of a bungalow built, on land granted him by the Collector in 1856, by Mr. J. W. McMurray, Treasury Deputy Collector, who died in Vizagapatam in 1883 and is buried in the Regimental Lines cemetery. Below this is the so-called 'Dutch Battery' mentioned on p. 44. Near it, washed by the surf, is a cave which is fabulously supposed to run inland for miles. The sea is declared to have made great encroachments on the point of the Dolphin's Nose, and tradition says that the people of Yerráda, the village at its southern foot, used to be able to walk round the headland to Vizagapatam. They now come over its crest by the paved path which leads up there. The sea has undoubtedly encroached near the 'Dutch Battery' and it also threatened to eat away the sand in front of the sea-customs office, but was checked by the series of loose stone groins (still visible) which Sir Arthur (then Major) Cotton put down in 1844. The river between the Dolphin's Nose and the town is crossed by a passenger ferry at its mouth and also by a pontoon ferry higher up, on the road to Anakápalle. The latter replaces the Turner pontoon bridge referred to on p. 135.
The tidal swamp or backwater drained by the river is completely sheltered on the south by the Dolphin's Nose and the hills behind it, and on the other sides is also protected by lesser and more distant heights. Proposals to turn it into a harbour have consequently been long debated. Borings show that a deep navigable channel 100 yards wide could be cut through it without difficulty, and the chief problem is the removal of the sand bar at the mouth of the river, which, though periodically scoured out by floods, carries only from two to three feet of water at low tide at certain seasons of the year. The authoritative account of the difficulties involved and the remedies for them is the report on Vizagapatam Harbour Investigations written by Mr. A. T. Mackenzie of the Public Works department in 1899 at the close of a year's special work on the subject. He considers that the bar and the sea-bottom outside it change but little from year to year; that the currents outside the bar are so variable and of so low a velocity as to affect the position but slightly; that the range of tide is small (generally under five feet and much less on an average) so that the scour from the backwater cannot be expected to do much to keep the bar open; that this scour has been diminished by the reclamations made and attempted in the backwater; and that the sand on the bar is brought by the south-west, and partly denuded by the north-east, monsoon — so that the bar shallows daring the former and deepens during the latter. The conclusion he comes to is that a groin from the end of the Dolphin's Nose, running first eastwards and then north-eastwards, would stop the formation of the bar, which is produced by waves acting on sand from the south. The cost of the groin he estimates roughly at Rs. 1,000 per foot run, or 30 lakhs for 3,000 feet. The probability of the completion in the near future of the line from Vizianagram to Raipur has brought the proposals for a harbour into the field of practical politics, and the question of the action which should be taken is now under consideration.
The chief of the attempted reclamations in the swamp above referred to was undertaken by a Roman Catholic Bishop of Vizagapatam who obtained . ,000 acres of the swamp on certain conditions regarding the extent to be periodically reclaimed. Beyond the building of an embankment (now dilapidated) round this,nothing has been done in the way of reclamation; but the embankment restricts the area of the tidal gathering-ground and so lessens the daily scour across the bar. The railway line has a similar effect. 'The land which is now the municipal sewage farm was partly reclaimed by convict-labour between l872 and 1875. Ships used to be built there in former days. Loading and unloading at the port is now done by masúla boats from the north side of the river. A stone jetty and two cranes assist. Steamers anchor comparatively close to the shore in 6½ to 8 fathoms. In 1891 a landing and shipping fees committee was started under Act 111 of 1885. The trade of the port is referred to on p. 120. Native schooners, which used to be numerous, have been ousted by the steamers and the railway. The port office occupies the site of the old ice-house. Five European firms are represented at the place. Just behind the jetties and the port office are Ross' Hill and two other knolls occupied respectively by a Roman Catholic church, a Hindu temple, and a Musalman mosque, all in close proximity. Mr. Ross was a Sub-Judge who (notwithstanding some opposition from the Musalmans) built a bungalow, about 1848, on the hill which bears his name. The Roman Catholic Mission bought the property in 1867 and erected a church on the site. This was afterwards enlarged and opened in 1877. The darga to which the mosque is attached is widely known. It is the tomb of Saiyad Ali Medína alias Ishák Medína, and Hindus make vows at it as often as Musalmans. The saint is considered to be all potent over the elements in the Bay of Bengal. Mr.Carmichael says that when he wrote (1869) every vessel passing the harbour inwards or outwards used to salute the saint by hoisting and lowering its flag three times, that many a silver dhóni was presented to him by Hindu ship-owners after a successful voyage, and that in a suit between a Kómati owner of a vessel and his Muhammadan skipper about a settlement of accounts, the latter charged for a purse of rupees vowed to the darga during a hurricane and the former disputed the item solely on the ground that the vow had never been discharged ; and never questioned the propriety of conciliating the old fakir in dirty weather.
The actual history of the darga and mosque is forgotten. The inscriptions in and about them might afford information if deciphered. The inamdars in charge of them, who hold the Yerráda and Déváda villages for their upkeep, stated in a recent suit 1[3] that the date of the grant of the inam was prior to 1706. The early records of the English settlement at Vizagapatam speak of the frequent visits paid to the place by the Faujdars of Chicacole.
The southernmost part of Vizagapatam, in the apex of the triangle already referred to, is still known as 'the Fort.' Its former defences have been mentioned on p. 44 above and the map there given shows what immense changes a century and a half have effected in the place. The old fort itself evidently occupied much of the open green which now lies between the Collector's office, the District Court and the light-house. Pharoah's Gazetteer (1855) speaks as if it was still in existence then and says 'within the fort are the barracks for the European invalid soldiers, the arsenal, the officers' quarters and various public buildings. Immediately outside the fort gate, and in an open space, near which the pettah commences, is the garrison and European Veteran Company hospital, an upstair building. Not a vestige of the fortifications survives, but the garrison hospital is the building now occupied by Messrs. Simpson & Co. the 'open space' is doubtless that in which stands the bronze statue of the late Queen-Empress, given to the town by M.R.Ry.A. V. Jagga Rao in 1904 ; the invalid barrack (after being in turn a medical store, the Collector's treasury and the quarters of two medical warrant officers) has now become the Volunteer armoury and reading-room; and the arsenal is the Collector's office.
The history of the District Court building is alluded to on p. 207. The Collector's office was at one time in the building (now the property of M.R.Ry. Dharma Rao Náyudu which was afterwards occupied by the Waltair Orphan Asylum; was removed to the house now used as Messrs. Arbuthnot's office; and at the end of 1873 was transferred to its present quarters. These are most inconvenient, and a new building is to be put up on the sand-hill on one of the fine sites already mentioned overlooking the sea.
The Waltair Orphan Asylum (alias the Vizagapatam Male and Female Orphan Asylum) was founded in 1817 by the Rev.C. Church, Chaplain. It was remodelled in 1831 and was subsequently described as being intended ' to afford a shelter and home to destitute children, orphans and foundlings of the Northern Circars, and to provide for the maintenance of the offspring and descendants of the men of the Carnatic Veteran Battalion who were disbanded in 1842 and who left their children and grandchildren in a state of destitution.' In the sixties of the last century it contained some 50 inmates and in 1863 the new orphanage above mentioned was built for it. It afterwards declined in prosperity and eventually, in 1894, was abolished, the few orphans remaining in it being sent to other asylums and the bunding being sold.
Facing the Collector's office is the light-house, the light on which (formerly at santapilly) was removed hither in 1902 and is a white dioptric light of the fourth order, flashing every twenty seconds and visible twelve miles at sea in clear weather. Near it is the Roman Catholic church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, built in 1887. The cathedral of St. Anne's, a brick building in Gothic style erected in 1854, stands (see the map) on higher ground to the north.
Adjoining the Collector's office is St. John's, the Church of England place of worship. It was built in 1844 by Sir Arthur Cotton and consecrated in 1846. St, Paul's church in Waltair, it may here be mentioned, was built in 1838 by Captain J, H. Bell. The belfry was blown Down in the cyclone of 1870 (p. 153) and rebuilt by Government.
North of the fort, in a lane off the bazaar-street, chocked up by houses, is the old cemetery, often wrongly called the Dutch Cemetery.' There are no Dutch tombs in it, but it is the last resting-place of many of those who made Vizagapatam history and the burials date from 1699 to 1823. Among the graves are those of four Chiefs of the settlement, Simon Holcombe (1705), Sandys Davis (1734), Charles Simpson (1741) and Alexander Davidson (1791); of Kingsford Venner, a cadet of 19 who was killed in the sepoy mutiny of 1780 (p. 47); of John Dykes, a young seaman of H.M.S. Centurion, 50 guns, who was killed in a stirring fight in the Vizagapatam roads on the 18th September 1804, between his ship and a French man-of-war of 80 guns aided by two frigates, which resulted in the enemy being beaten off; 1[4] and of Benjamin Roebuck (1809), builder of the Mint at Madras and the docks at Coringa, who was sent to Vizagapatam as a punishment for supposed complicity in the scandals connected with the debts of the Nawab of the Carnatic.2[5]
North-east of the fort, on excellent sites facing the sea, are the new office of the deputy tahsildar and the Town Hall presented to the place by the Mahárája of Bobbili to comme- morate the late Queen-Empress' diamond jubilee. They stand on land which used to be occupied by a very dirty fishermen's hamlet called Jáláripéta. In 1896-99 the houses in this were bought up at a cost of Rs. 27,000 and the fishermen transferred to a site across the river purchased and improved at a cost of Rs. 9,000. The fisher people, however, died at such a rate in their new quarters that in 1900 they were brought back and settled on a new site on the sand-hill.
On this hill are the civil hospital (see p, 157), the Mrs. A. V.Narasinga Rao college (p. 161), the site destined for the medical school and the Gajapati Rao poor-house. This last was started in 1863 by the then voluntary municipal association, was managed by a committee from 1866 till 1871, when it was taken over by the municipality; fell to a committee again between 1878 and 1886, when the council once more assumed charge;and in 1899 was taken over by Mahárája Sir Gajapati Rao,
The Turner Chattram and the new market, both in the bazaar-street, have been referred to elsewhere. Dábá Gardens, the residence of M.R.Ry. A. V. Jagga Rao (see p. 220), contains the Godé Venkata Jagga Rao observatory. This was established in 1841 by the gentleman whose name it bears who (p. 220) had imbibed a taste for astronomy from his tutor, the then Government Astronomer. He erected the existing flagstatff on the Dolphin's Nose, the flag on which used to be hauled down precisely at 9 A.M. to set the time for the station. After his death his daughter, Mrs. A. V. Narasinga Rao, and her husband added largely to the equipment of the observatory and the institution began the contribution to the Bengal and Government of India Meteorological departments of the series of observations which is still continued. In 1884 Mrs. Narasinga Rao proposed to endow the institution with a fund of three lakhs and hand it over to trustees under the control of the Madras Government. Government did not find themselves able to accept the position, but eventually, in 1895, the Government of India 1[6] vested the observatory, the Dolphin's Nose flagstaff and the three lakhs in the Madras Treasurer of Charitable Endowments and the immediate management of the institution in a committee comprising the Collector for the time being, the Meteorological Reporters to the Governments of Madras and Bengal, the Government Astronomer and others. Subsequently M.R.Ry. A. V. Jagga Rao regained control of the observatory and its endowment. The instruments there include a 6-inch equatorial, a 3- inch transit instrument, a sidereal clock and a photographic telescope.
Facing Dábá Gardens is the old parade-ground, now used by the police. The lines of the two infantry regiments which used to be stationed in Vizagapatam were near this, on the other side of the road to Waltair. With Rs. 10,000 presented by the late Mahárája Sir Gajapati Rao and after his death by his widow, the site of these has recently been cleared and levelled, and the hamlet growing up on it is called Maháránipéta. A road leads from it across the slopes of the sand-hill to the road along the shore.
Near this hamlet is Súrya Bágh, the residence of the Ráni of Wadhwán (p. 221), just north of which, at the junction of the roads to Waltair and to Bimlipatam stands the cemetery usually called 'the Regimental Lines cemetery,' or, from the inscription over its gateway, the Mors janna vitie cemetery. This was consecrated by Bishop Spencer in 1847. The tombs in it date from 1819 to 1883, and include those of two Collectors of the district (John Smith, 1824, and William Mason, 1884, the name- father of 'Mason's House' in Waltair) and of many military officers belonging to the troops formerly stationed in Vizagapatam. The Protestant cemetery now in use is near the District Jail and was consecrated by Bishop Gell in 1864. The oldest European tomb in Waltair is that by the side of the road a little below the Club. The natives call it Ghanudu goli or 'great man's tomb' and say it is haunted, but no one knows who is buried under it. One story says it covers the body of a French-man killed at Bussy's capture of Vizagapatam in 1757, but, as has been seen (p. 45), the place was taken then without a shot being fired.
Of the origins of the various bungalows in Waltair no records are traceable, mainly because the land is zamindari property. The Waltair estate was one of those carved out of the old havíli land and sold by auction in 1802 (p. 170). It was bought, says Mr. Carmichael, by Mosalakanti Venkóji, a high official in the Collector's cutcherry, who died in 1821, leaving two minor sons. The Court of Wards managed the property until 1833, when it was handed over to the elder son, Venkata Náráyana Rao, who was followed in 1859 by Venkata Jagannátha Rao, On his death in 1873 the estate was divided into the three properties of Allipuram, Maddilapálem and Waltair, and in 1888 the Guntubóyinapálem village of the latter was sold and made into yet another separate property.
It has already (p. 42) been seen that the first move to Waltair was made by the Company in 1727 for the reason that the water there was excellent for bleaching the cloths made by their weavers. The golf links are still called by the natives Chalavalu, which means ' bleaching.' Round about them are the ruins of several bungalows occupied in the old days by the officers of the Northern Division of the Madras Command, and down by the sea are the ruins of their swimming-bath and of the well from which it was filled. Vizagapatam was the head-quarters of the Northern Division until its abolition in June 1878, and the troops stationed there included the General (who lived in what is now the Judge's bungalow) and his staff, two Native Infantry regiments and their officers and the officers commanding the European Veteran Company.
West of Waltair rises a bare, whale-backed spur of the Simháchalam hills, about 1,600 feet above the sea, which goes by the names of Kailása and 'Thomas' Folly.' In 1871 Mr. E. C. G. Thomas, Judge of Vizagapatam, built himself quarters on the top of this and used to go down every morning to the foot of it in a tonjon, be driven thence to his court, and ride up again at night. When Government were looking about for a sanitarium for Calcutta in 1872, he wrote to them bringing the place to notice and stating that it was quite free from fever, possessed of good soil, covered with interesting plants, contained space for 100 houses, was from ten to fourteen degrees cooler than Vizagapatam, and had a most invigorating climate. He had by then laid out Rs. 6,000 in roads, reservoirs (there was no spring higher than half way up the hill) and temporary buildings, and the Mahárája of Vizianagram (owner of the hill) had erected, at a similar cost, a permanent house which Mr. Thomas rented. The remains of this last are still visible from Waltair.
Government called for the opinion of the Collector, Superintending Engineer and Zilla Surgeon on the place. They reported that the water difficulty was serious, the place cramped, the difference of temperature only four degrees, the building sites exposed, the evening mists unpleasant and the absence of any shade a drawback. Government accordingly decided in 1873 to spend no money on the hill.
- ↑ 1 Mackenzie MSS., Local Records, iv, 265-9,
- ↑ 1 Manual of Administration, iii, 280.
- ↑ 1 O.S. No. 16 of 1902 on the District Court's file.
- ↑ 1 See Col. Campbell's letter describing the fight in Asiatic Annual Register for 1805, 32,
- ↑ 2 More particulars of the various graves will be found in Mr. J. J. Cotton's List of Inscriptions on Madras Tombs,
- ↑ 1 See the fuller account of the matter in the Report on the observatory for 1895.