BISSAMKATAK TALUK.
This taluk was formed in 1884 out of Gunupur, and consists of the northernmost portion of the tongue of land which forces its way up between the Ganjám maliahs on the east and Kálahandi State on the west. The extreme north of it drops down into the valley of the Tél, but all the rest drains into the Vamsadhára. It is bounded on the west by the Nimgiri range, a remarkable and steep-sided mass of hills which rises in one place to 4,968 feet, and on the east by the hills of the Chandrapur and Bijápur muttas, inhabited by Kuttiya Khonds and covered with the sál forest referred to on p. 120 above. The southern portion contains a good deal of fine, open, dry cultivation resembling that of the adjoining Ráyagada taluk and consisting of valleys of fertile, light soil winding in and out among scattered low hills and dotted with tamarind, jack, mango and other trees, including some fine old banyans. In this land, wonderful tobacco is grown. It is exported in large quantities to Kálahandi and the Central Provinces, merchants coming even from Raipur and Sambalpur to buy it, but the people of this district pronounce it too fullflavoured. A great deal of paddy is also raised in the damper hollows and is exported to Gunupur. In the central and northern portions of the taluk the valleys are narrower and more shut in with jungle, but the soil is still rich, especially round about Ambadála. According to the census figures, 36 per cent, of the people speak Uriya and 43 per cent, talk Khond. The latter consist of the Désya Khonds, who are comparatively civilized and occupy the north-western corner, and the wild Kuttiya Khonds, who dwell on the hills between Dongasúrada and Karlaghati and the eastern frontier of the taluk, and are seldom found elsewhere in the district.
The only place of any note in the taluk is its head-quarters —
Bissamkatak, called by the natives Bissamkóta, a village of 2,026 inhabitants. It lies close to the beautiful Nimgiris at the point where the tracks running northwards from Ráyagada and Gunupur meet, and is 1,114 feet above the sea. The name means 'poisonous fort' and is usually supposed to have been earned by the virulence of the malaria there, which is a byword throughout the district.
