Page:Gódávari.djvu/139

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OCCUPATIONS AND TRADE.
113

are sold outside the district, and so are the hides and skins from the tanneries of Rajahmundry. The distillery and sugar-factory at Samalkot also sends large quantities of its sugar and arrack to other parts of India. Of the agricultural products exported, rice is the largest item. Pulses, oils, fibres of various kinds and hemp are also shipped in great quantities.

The chief imports into the district include metal vessels, kerosine oil, iron. European and other piece-goods, leather and cattle.

The only considerable seaport in Gódávari is the flourishing town of Cocanada, which serves not only the district itself, but its neighbours to the north and south and an extensive hinterland which includes parts of the Nizam's Dominions.

The port of Cocanada is situated in the south-west corner of Coringa bay, a large but shallow sheet of water,five miles by five in extent, lying at the northernmost angle of the delta. The bay is something the shape of a horse-shoe and is only open from the north-east. The most northerly mouth of the Gódávari flows into it on the south, where it is gradually silting it up, and the everlengthening arm of Cape Gódávari, which is estimated to be advancing seawards at the rate of a mile in 20 years, encloses it on the east. The rapid shallowing of the bay has rendered it necessary for large ships to anchor five miles from the shore to the north-east of Cocanada town, but the anchorage is well-protected and exceptionally safe.

Goods have to be landed in cargo boats, but the channel leading from the anchorage to the harbour itself is deep enough to allow boats of 100 tons burden, and drawing as much as five feet of water, to reach Cocanada at certain states of the tide. The harbour consists of a tidal creek which receives the surplus of the Cocanada and Samalkot canals and the discharge of the Bikkavólu drain and the Yeléru river, which together enter the Samalkot branch of the creek just below the last lock of the Samalkot canal. The harbour shows a tendency to silt owing to deposits brought from above; and its mouth is also with difficulty kept clear of the sand and mud which is swept into the Coringa bay from the Gódávari on the south, from a drainage creek entering the bay just to the north of the harbour, and in stormy weather, from the open sea on the north-east. Two dredgers are therefore kept constantly at work, and it has also been found necessary to extend the mouth of the harbour by long groins. The harbour is revetted from the bridge leading to Jagannáthapuram, and the revetment is continued along the groins, its