PÁLKONDA TALUK.
Pálkonda ('the pot of milk,' so called from its fertility) lies on the north-east of the district, adjoining Ganjám, and is drained and irrigated by the perennial Nágávali or Lángulya and its tributary the Suvarnamukhi. It is one of the three Government taluks of Vizagapatam, is the richest portion of the district, and contains a greater and a denser population than any other taluk therein. Statistics regarding it will he found in the separate Appendix to this volume. It consists of two widely differing parts; namely, the ordinary tracts, which form a level plain, nearly one half of which is paddy-fields, inhabited by Telugus; and the Agency in the group of low hills on the north, which run up to 3,000 feet and are 160 square miles in extent, where three-quarters of the people are backward Játapus or Savaras and cultivation has hardly emerged from the kondapódu stage. The forests on these hills have been referred to on p. 113 and the Sítámpéta pass through them on p. 142.
The taluk has had an eventful history. Visvambara Deo I, Rája of Jeypore from 1672 to 1676, is said to have granted it to a Játapu on whom, 'seeing his wisdom and his skill in archery,' he also conferred the title of Naréndra Rao. In 1779 the country was reduced by the Rája of Vizianagram with the help of the Company's troops (internal disturbances affording a pretext for interference) and the Pálkonda fort was captured. The taluk was soon afterwards restored, and the Committee of Circuit's report of 1784 says that Viziaráma Rázu, the then representative of the Játapu familji , paid the Rájas of Vizianagram a tribute of Ks. 52,000 besides rendering service with his paiks, 'who are esteemed the best troops in the country.' From 1793 to 1796 1[1] he was in open revolt against the Company, but Víraghattam and others of his strongholds having been seized, he surrendered and was deposed. His son Sítaráma (who had taken no part in the rebellion) succeeded, but died in 1798 and was followed by his minor brother Venkatapati Rázu, with whom the permanent settlement was made in 1803 on a peshkash of Rs. 55,000. In 1811 Viziaráma, his deposed father, assembled a body
- ↑ 1 Mr. Russell's report of 18th Novembtr 1834, published in 1856 as No. XXIV of the Selections from the Madras Records, paras. 10 to 61 of which give a detailed narrative from which the following account has been greatly abridged.
