Masulipatnam

“ He represented to them, that "defective as their force was in cavalry, it would scarcely be possible for the infantry and artillery alone to protect the long train of carriages required for the sick, baggage, stores, provisions, and ammunition, through a march of 200 miles to Masulipatnam. from the incessant attacks of the Morattoes, as well as Salabad-jing's cavalry, which were approaching: and if they should gain their way to this place, other evils would be the consequence of their success; since the enemy accompanying their progress would carry the ravages of war into the ceded provinces ”

“ This cavalry appeared on the 26th of June, and encamped about six miles from the French army. The next day their generals summoned Mr. Bussy, in the name of Salabad-jing, to surrender all his artillery, excepting the six field pieces which had brought from Pondicherry, and to relinquish the attributes of his Moorish dignities, promising on these conditions to let him proceed quietly to Masulipatnam. Mr. Bussy replies that he acknowledged the mandates of no man to disarm himself, and that he held his dignities from the Emperor, not from Salabad-jing. ”

“ It is the capital of a province, or phousdarry, of no great extent, and one of the four obtained from Salabadjing by Mr. Bussy. It has been very little known to the English, and never frequented by them since they withdrew their factory from Masulipatam in the last century. The town is extensive, and in the middle of it is a very large fort, in which the French used to keep a garrison mostly of black troops; but the Marquis de Conflans had taken them away with him, as he was passing on to Masulipatam, where he had determined to make his stand. ”

“ Negopatnam is a city of great trade, on the coast of Coromandel, where they have only a factory. St Thomas, or Meliapoor, is a walled town inhabited by the Portuguese. In Bengal, up the river Ganges, they have a town, besides some factories and many small habitations. They have a factory in Pegu, another in Aracan, and one in the river of Martaban. Also at Junkceylon they have a great factory, whence they fetch considerable quantities of tin to the Malabar coast. ”

“ In Sanscrit, as McCrindle shows, the name is Mausala, which survives in Machhlipatana, the modern Masulipatam (16° 11' N. , 81° 8' E. ) , until the construction of the Bombay railway the chief port of entry for the Deccan. At the date of the Periplus it was, no doubt, the greatest market of the Andhra kingdom. Tavernier found it (I, xi) “the best anchorage in the Bay of Bengal, and the only place from which vessels sail for Pegu, Siam, Arakan, Bengal, Cochinchina, Mecca, and Hormus, as also for the islands of Madagascar, Sumatra, and the Manillas. ”

“ Encircled by great rocks and crags, which resemble the fortifications of ancient cities, and are believed by the common people to have been placed in position by giants, the city of Hyderabad, with its suburbs, and the fort of Golconda, gave me enough to think about during the short time that I spent among the ruling community—those courteous and highly-cultivated Maho-medan gentlemen who seem to take a pleasure in helping the English visitor to form and carry away a pleasant and romantic impression of the capital of His Highness the Nizam's Dominions. ”

“ Mala.—A low Telugu caste of labourers and cotton-weavers. They numbered nearly 14,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, belonging mainly to the Chānda, Nāgpur, Jubbulpore, and Yeotmāl Districts, and the Bastar State. The Marāthas commonly call them Telugu Dhers, but they themselves prefer to be known as ‘Telangi Sadar Bhoi,’ which sounds a more respectable designation. They are also known as Mannepuwār and Netkāni. They are the Pariahs of the Telugu country, and are regarded as impure and degraded. ”

“ For every marriage, representatives of the four towns Peddapatnam, Vizagapatam, Bimlipatam, and Revalpatnam, should be invited, and should be the first to receive pān-supāri (betel leaves and areca nuts) after the pandal has been set up. ”

“ Luckily our force amounted to three, a number sufficient to overawe any Mashonaland village.
There are some nice-looking farms just started on the slopes of the hills here. Near there we met a wondrous long string of natives in single file, who avoided us and looked askance at us and our animals. Some day or another, when Fort Salisbury becomes a big place, and food supplies are needed, those who have pegged out farms in the Mazoe district will reap a fine profit from their agricultural produce, if I am not much mistaken. [301] ”

“ The population in 1901 was 531,736. Rice is the staple crop; next in importance is sugar-cane; areca nuts are also extensively grown; and miscellaneous crops include vegetables, fruits and pepper. The chief manufactures are coarse cotton cloths, rough country blankets, iron implements, brass and copper wares, pottery and jaggery. The district is noted for its beautiful sandal-wood carving.
During the Mahommedan usurpation of Mysore from 1761 to 1799, unceasing warfare kept the whole country in constant turmoil. ”

“ Vegi, near Ellore, in the Krishna district, and Rajahmundry in the Godavari district were for many centuries, the capitals of the powerful Andhra kingdom of Vengi at whose court Telugu was first cultivated. Under the Eastern Chalukyas, the dominions of the kings of Vengi included the greater part of the Vizagapatam district and extended in the south-west into the Nellore district. The inland parts of the Telugu country were absorbed during this period by the kingdoms of Dravida, Karnata, or Maharastra. ”

“ Mysore (4,900) , a native State, half the size of England, embedded in the Madras Presidency, occupies a lofty, broken, but fertile tableland; the upper waters of the Kistna and Kaveri are used for irrigation purposes; betel-nut, coffee, cotton, rice, and silk are exported; cloth, wheat, and precious metals are imported; the climate is healthy and pleasant; under British government from 1831, it was restored to its prince in 1881, under British protection; the capital is Mysore (74) , a prosperous, well-built town. ”

“ The Sabari is the principal tributary of the Godavari within the district. The Godavari often rises in destructive floods. The population of the present area in 1901 was 1,445,961. In the old district the increase during the last decade was 11%. The chief towns are Cocanada and Rajahmundry. The forests are of great value; coal is known, and graphite is worked. The population is principally occupied in agriculture, the principal crops being rice, oil-seeds, tobacco and sugar. The cigars known in England as Lunkas are partly made from tobacco grown on lankas or islands in the river Godavari. ”

“ The district which lies round the latter town is better watered than western Matabililand, and the soil richer both for pasture and for tillage. The rainfall for the year ending April, 1890, reached fifty-three inches, and the average is about forty.
Fort Salisbury is three years older than Bulawayo, and therefore much more advanced. It has even [Pg 241] several churches. There is a colony of East Indians, who grow vegetables and get very high prices for them; and a considerable trade is done in supplying the needs of the mining districts to the north and west. ”

“ You did me the honour to ask my opinion on both subjects; and I suggested, that an officer of rank should be immediately ordered to Masulipatam, to inquire into, and report upon, the proceedings of the officers of [175] that garrison; and that a letter should be written to the commanding officers of the subsidiary forces at Hyderabad and Jaulnah, informing them of your having received, with regret and disapprobation, a Memorial from the officers under their command, soliciting that you should rescind the orders of the 1st of May ”

“ So much do coffee districts vary in India, that the party was to me a startling surprise, which the reader may easily understand when I mention that, after leaving the most northerly plantation in Coorg and entering my district of Manjarabad, there is only one resident lady to be found there, and it is not till you reach the northern district of Mysore, some sixty miles further, that ladies, in the plural, again commence, though even there they do not exist to a very serious extent. ”

“ Near the stûpa is the site of the ancient village and fort; long ridges of earth, in form of a square, mark the position of the walls; within these, various articles have been turned up, large bricks, broken sepulchral urns and grain jars, together with beads of various material and Buddhist lead coins, both round and square; they bear the lion and the dugoba, emblems of the Andhra dynasty. ”

“ The domed building for the public offices in Gordon Park, the Maharaja's College, the Victoria Jubilee Institute, and the law courts are conspicuous. Mysore, though the dynastic capital of the state, was superseded by Seringapatam as the seat of the court from 1610 to 1799, and in 1831, on the British occupation, the seat of administration was removed to Bangalore. ”

“ The Abkári Act I of 1886 has been extended to 47 villages in Yellavaram, Chódavaram and Pólavaram — chiefly the more civilized villages near the plains — and the excise system has been introduced into 30 of these — two in Yellavaram, four in Chódavaram and 24 in Pólavaram. ”

“ Beyond them again lived the Andaroi, in whom it is impossible not to recognize the Andhras of Southern India. The Andhras were a great and powerful nation who had settled originally between the Godavari and the Krishna, but who before the time of Megasthenes had extended their kingdom as far north as the Narmada. Megasthenes writes that they were a powerful race, possessed numerous villages and thirty walled towns, and supplied their king with 100,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 1,000 elephants. ”

“ The princes of the East do not lose much of their valuable time in the study of geography. Major Achilles Kirkpatrick, the Resident at this Court, wished to obtain a grant of one or two fields to erect this structure upon. He requested the engineer of the English force stationed at Hyderabad to make an exact survey of the spot and when this was finished upon a large sheet he carried it to the Darbar and, showing it to the Nizam, requested he would grant the English Government a grant of the land. ”

“ The sandalwood souvenirs from Mysore possess a delightful fragrance which time does not exhaust; a slight pinprick revives the odor. Mysore boasts some of the largest pioneer industrial undertakings in India, including the Kolar Gold Mines, the Mysore Sugar Factory, the huge iron and steel works at Bhadravati, and the cheap and efficient Mysore State Railway which covers many of the state’s 30,000 square miles.
The Maharaja and Yuvaraja who were my hosts in Mysore in 1935 have both recently died. ”

“ During his minority Hyderabad was wisely administered by Sir Salar Jung, who initiated a form of government which was most beneficial to his State.
The Maharaja of Mysore is the ruler of a State in southern India of a total area of 80,000 square miles, containing a population of 5,500,000, and yielding a revenue of about £1,500,000. It is an ancient Hindu dynasty which has undergone strange vicissitudes. ”

“ Southern India, rich with historical and archaeological remains, is a land of definite and yet indefinable charm. To the north of Mysore is the largest native state in India, Hyderabad, a picturesque plateau cut by the mighty Godavari River. Broad fertile plains, the lovely Nilgiris or "Blue Mountains," other regions with barren hills of limestone or granite. Hyderabad history is a long, colorful story, starting three thousand years ago under the Andhra kings, and continuing under Hindu dynasties until A.D. 1294, when it passed to a line of Moslem rulers who reign to this day. ”

“ Every little heap of stones beside the railway line had been guarded by policemen while the viceregal train rushed past, and motor cars had conveyed Their Excellencies from entertainment to entertainment in Hyderabad city and its suburbs, while the lives of the common people had been made wretched by police regulations and restrictions, and the public had offered up a daily and hourly prayer that the Viceroy might go safely and quickly away. ”

“ The Brahmaputra and its channels, together with three minor streams, the Bangali, Karatoya and Atrai, afford admirable facilities for commerce, and render every part of the district accessible to native cargo boats of large burden. The rivers swarm with fish. The former production of indigo is extinct, and the industry of silk-spinning is decaying. There is no town with as many as 10,000 inhabitants, trade being conducted at riverside marts. Nor are there any metalled roads. Several lines of railway (the Eastern Bengal, &c.) , however, serve the district. ”

“ Mysore, in its general aspect, is pleasing, and gives an impression of prosperity and progress. The streets are regular, and the bazaar (trading street) looks quite brilliant with its shops filled with bright-coloured silks, gay cotton goods, cloth, carpets, and other articles of merchandise. ”

“ There is also occasion for much tact, firmness, and temper, in dealing with the labourers and overseers on the estates, and also the native population with which nearly all the estates in Mysore are surrounded. Then much tact and judgment is required in dealing with the Government officials. Other points might also be added, but I have probably said enough to caution those who may be inclined to embark in coffee planting in Mysore, against assuming, as has hitherto been too often done, that it is a business which may be managed by people of inferior capacity. ”