and even bloodshed. The adopting zamindar belonged to the Damara Ashwa Rao family, and selected as his heir a boy of the Kundemulla family. This choice was resented and resisted by another family, called by Captain Glasfurd the Setpilly Ashwa Raos, who thought one of their members ought to have been selected. The struggle between the members of these families went on for more than forty years. The Setpillys were at first victorious; but their representative made a raid into British territory and was taken prisoner and carried off to Hyderabad in 1811. The Damara adoptee was now appointed zamindar by the Nizam; but he was so harassed by the Setpillys that in 1819 a European officer (Mr. Ralph) was sent with a body of local troops to Palavancha, where he remained to keep order for three years. The Nizam soon intervened again, this time granting a small portion of the estate to the Setpillys and one village to the Damaras, and taking the rest under his own management. The Setpillys defied the local authorities in 1844 and seized the greater part of the estate; but their representative died in 1851; and, after a little disturbance and some negotiation the property was handed over finally to the Damaras on a decision being passed in their favour (in 1852) by an influential pancháyat of zamindars. The Damara appointed in 1852 was succeeded by his mother in 1859, who was followed before her death in 1874 by her daughter's son, Parthasarathi Appa Rao, who is the present zamindar. The estate at one time (see p. 175) also included the present Rékapalle zamindari.
Until the taluk was handed over to the British Government by the Nizam in 186o the Bhadráchalam zamindar always kept up a troop of Rohillas, who received very little pay for their services and lived chiefly by looting the country round. The taluk was divided into ten samutús, each of which theoretically contained twenty-five Kóya villages and each of which had to supply for a month, without pay orbatta, a hundred Kóyas to carry burdens, fetch supplies, etc., for the Rohillas, and a hundred Mádigas to act as horse-keepers- The whole country appears to have been at the mercy of these undisciplined Rohillas. 'All was grist,' writes Mr. Cain,1[1] 'that came to their mill, even the clothes of the poor Koi women, who were frequently stripped and then regarded as objects of ridicule. The Kois have frequently told me that they never could lie down to rest at night without feeling that before morning their slumbers might be rudely disturbed, their houses burnt and their property carried off. As a rule they hid their grain
- ↑ 1 Ind. Ant., v, 303.
