Relief-works, chiefly the digging of tanks, were opened in August, but gratuitous relief was prohibited, and many of the higher castes preferred to starve rather than demean them- selves by doing earth-work. The relief afforded seems in any case to have been quite inadequate to the distress. Thousands of persons emigrated to Madras and to other more fortunate districts. 'A stream of pilgrims flowed night and day towards the south .... The great northern road soon became one long graveyard. It was often most difficult to distinguish between the dying and the dead.'1[1] Young girls were sold and sent away to Hyderabad; the scarcity of water added the torments of thirst to those of hunger; and grain could not be transported without armed escorts, since the villagers turned out en masse when they heard of the approach of grain merchants with a convoy of food, and tried to obtain possession of it by force. Happily the famine did not last more than a year, and seems to have come to an end before the beginning of 1834.
The two following seasons were favourable, but there was a general failure of the monsoons between 1835 and 1838. In the first of these years the early rains were deficient and yet many of the crops were destroyed by inundations; in the next there was continued drought, and in 1837-38 the early showers again failed and the later rainfall was excessive.2[2] The year 1838-39 is described in the report of Sir Henry Montgomery, who based his statements 'on his own observations, and enquiries from persons of all classes, confirmed by the periodical reports of the different Collectors,' as one of 'extreme distress little less than famine, equal if not exceeding in calamities that of 1832-33.' This however seems to have been an over-statement of the case. Want of sufficient rain ruined the 'white' paddy crop; and though in December a few showers saved the cholam harvest near Rajahmundry, in the north of the district that crop was lost too. Small relief-works (the deepening of tanks) were started by private philanthropy in Rajahmundry; and these were taken over by Government in February 1839, in which month 450 persons were daily employed upon them. Relief-works were also started at Samalkot in March. In June, good rain put a stop to the sufferings of the people. Altogether only Rs. 6,156 were spent on public relief, so the scarcity appears to have been far from severe. Two factors united to prevent more serious results: the area affected was not large, and the price of grain was kept down by liberal importations by sea.
