contains a station of the Schleswig-Holstein Lutheran Mission and its travellers' bungalow is picturesquely placed on high ground overlooking a winding reach of the river. Before the Pottangi ghát was begun, Sálúr was a small place, but, as soon as traffic began to come down from the hills by that route, its situation raised it into importance as a trade mart, and when, in 1884, the ghát was improved into a cart-road the place very rapidly expanded from a village to a busy town. Unluckily, the site is cramped and shut in by the river, a big tank and wet fields: the soil is soft and dries slowly; no one supervised the sudden growth of the place; the new houses were run up anyhow and anywhere on no plan and with narrow, crooked lanes between them; and Sálúr is now so notorious for its dirt and general unloveliness that men say its name must surely be derived from the French sole.
The importance of its trade, however, is undeniable. It has a very big weekly market; is the timber-yard of the Agency adjoining, the Pottangi ghát being the only outlet for that commodity; and also deals largely in all kinds of produce from the hills (such as niger and gingelly seed, mustard, myrabolams, rice and ragi); exports thither salt, tobacco, kerosine, beads and other jewellery, and cloths; and collects, for transmission to Bimlipatam, the jute and castor crop of the adjoining villages of the low country. The merchants of the place keep up, at an annual cost of Rs. 800, a flourishing Véda school maintained from the proceeds of self-imposed fees levied on all their purchases.
The town is the head-quarters of the inalienable and impartible ancient zamindari of the same name, the proprietor of which resides in a house built within an old mud fort which is as little dilapidated as any in the district. According to tradition, the estate was originally granted by the Visvambara Deo of Jeypore already several times mentioned to a chief on whom he conferred the lofty title of Boliyaro Simho, or 'mighty lion.' Like its fellows, it was eventually absorbed by Vizianagram. Mr. Carmichael says that when the English first obtained the country, the then zamindar, Sanyási Razu, headed a revolt against Vizianagram and in consequence lost the hunda of Makkuva. On his death in 1774 the Vizianagram Rája confiscated the whole of his estate, imprisoned his three sons in the fort of Dévapalli near Gajapatinagaram, but released them on a small allowance in 1793.
After the fight at Padmanábham (p. 53) the estate was handed over by the Collector to Rámachandra Rázu, Sanyási
