existence of a Kóya or Reddi village, but the hills are very sparsely inhabited.
In flood time the water flows with terrific force. 'Through the gorge,' writes Dr. King, 'the pent-up waters tear their way with, I have been told, a surface so strangely concave on the cross section that adventurous boatmen glide along the bottom of a trough whose sides rise up to a good height and hide away the immediate banks; and out of this gorge away towards the open country of the Gódávari district the river has such a fall that the sensation produced on the mind of the traveller is said to be that of sliding down an inclined plane.'*[1] Native boatmen are much afraid of navigating the river at such times; and none of them, of whatever creed, omit to break a number of cocoanuts at the mouth of the gorge to appease the dangerous demon Biraiya already mentioned, who will dash on a rock or drown in a whirlpool the navigator who omits this homage. So great is the action of the stream during floods that the rocky bed has been scoured out to depths popularly supposed to be unfathomable, but which really vary normally from 100 to nearly 200 feet. High floods rise quite 50 feet above the normal level, so that the gorge then encloses a torrent of waters from 150 to 250 feet in depth.†[2]
After passing this point and entering the open country, the river widens out and flows by the old zamindari strongholds of Pólavaram and Gútála and the picturesque and sacred islands of Mahánandisvaram and Pattisam.‡[3] At Rajahmundry it is nearly two miles wide, and some five miles further down, at Dowlaishweram, at the head of the delta, it is crossed by the celebrated anicut which renders its waters at last available for irrigation. At this point the river is nearly four miles broad, though about a third of this width is taken up by three islands, and the spot is more fully described in Chapter IV. At Dowlaishweram the Gódávari divides into two main streams— the eastern or Gautami Gódávari flowing past Injaram, the little French settlement of Yanam, and Nīlapalli, and entering the sea near Point Gódávari, and the western or Vasishta Gódávari flowing nearly due south and entering the sea at Point Narasapur. A few miles above this latter mouth another large branch, the Vainatéyam, breaks off to the east of the Vasishta Gódávari (forming the island of Nagaram between itself and the latter river) and reaches the
