Page:Vizagapatam.djvu/274

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VIZAGAPATAM.

funds. The town stands amid the palmyra-dotted red land usual to this corner of Vizagapatam, in a wide valley bounded on one side by the Golgonda hills and on the other by rising ground and smaller elevations which are just high enough to cut off the sea breeze. It is consequently one of quite the hottest spots in the district.

The Divisional Officer's bungalow and office and the new taluk cutcherry (the latter of which is surrounded by a high wall provided with loop-holed bastions at the corners, intended to render it secure from attack by fitúridars) stand in a row beside the road east of the town. The house of the Assistant Superintendent, however, is built off the road to Kondasanta, at the other end of the place. Nearly opposite this last are the old parade- ground and magazine of the former Sibbandi corps which was stationed hero to check fitúris in the Golgonda hills and was amalgamated with the ordinary police force in 1861. An old race-course may be traced not far off on the same side of the road. The cemetery next the Divisional Officer's bungalow contains the grave of Captain Gibson of the 26th N.I. who died in 1849 and was apparently an officer employed in the outbreak of that date referred to above. The name of Captain W. G. Owen, 11th N.I., who commanded the Sibbandi force from 1851 until it was reconstituted, was thanked for his services in the 1857-58 fitúri (see p. 249) and in 1859 was made Assistant Agent at Narasapatam, is still remembered. He was a great tiger-slayer and he built the Divisional Officer's house (and also, it is said, the bungalows at Kondakarla áva and on the shore at Pólavaram)and handed it on to his successor, C. T. Longley, who in 1865 sold it to its present owner, the Rája of Vizianagram.

Narasapatam contains the remains of an old mud fort which is'said to have been built by one of the Golgonda Bhúpatis above referred to. Enough of the walls remains to screen the public latrine which has now been established within it.

The town boasts no noteworthy products unless it be the mango pickle its Kómatis make.

Uratla: A dirty village of 3,196 inhabitants, nine miles south-east of Narasapatam, off the road to the railway-station. Is only noteworthy as the chief place of the estate of the same name, which was one of those formed out of the havíli land and sold by auction at a fixed peshkash in 1802. It was then bought by the Rája of Vizianagram, who sold it in 1810 to one Sági Rámachandra Rázu. In 1832 it was sold for arrears and bought by a

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