GUNUPUR TALUK.
Gunupur is the most easterly talak in the district and the richest in the Jeypore zamindari. It consists of a portion of the valley of the Vamsadhara and of the hills which enclose this. The valley is quite level (the western side of it most monotonously so) and in it is grown paddy which is the best in the district and is favourably known even in distant Calcutta. The outlet for this and other products is at present through the Parlakimedi zamindari of Ganjam to Chicacole, but when the line is opened to Parvatipur it will doubtless travel thither via Kurupam.
The hills on the west are called the Kailasakota hills and consist of a range averaging 2,500 feet high which divides the watersheds of the Vamsadhara and Langulya and near the top of which is an undulating plateau. They once contained quantities of sal, but little is left now. The hills on the eastern frontier are mainly inhabited by the Savaras (38 per cent, of the people of the taluk speak that language) and in them dwell the only remnants of the real hill Savaras who survive in this district.
These people have been referred to on p. 95 above. They are known for the industry with which they cultivate. They terrace the steep hill-sides with great revetments of stone, often fifteen feet deep ; grow splendid cholam twelve or fourteen feet high on the slopes; preserve every pound of fodder by cutting the crops close to the ground and storing the straw on platforms or up trees to save it from damp; and utilize for irrigation every rill in the country. Their well-kept fields, with the numerous ippa trees scattered about them, have been likened to Italian homesteads surrounded with their dark olives.
At the end of the eighteenth century the taluk was taken by force 1[1] from Jeypore by Narayana Deo of Kimedi. He gave it to his brother, Pratapa Deo, but the latter was eventually driven out by Sitarama Razu, diwan of Vizianagram, with the help of the Company's troops. Finding himself unable to manage it, Sitarama Eazu gave it back to Jeypore after he had held it three years. In 1803 Mr. Alexander reported that it was a kind of liereditary farm belonging to the family of a former patro or diwan, then represented by one Narayana Patro, who paid a rent
- ↑ 1 See Proceedings of the Committee ot Circuit, dated 12th September 1784.
