VIZAGAPATAM.
headland already mentioned and on the north by a small point which separates it from the picturesque little cove called Lawson's Bay after the Patrick Lawson, Commander of the Lord Hobart indiaman, who lies buried (1820) in the old cemetery. Vizagapatam proper lies at the southern end of this bay and Waltair at the northern, and between them, along the shore, runs a fine road which opens up a whole series of splendid (but so far greatly neglected) building sites.
Immediately north of the Dolphin's Nose is a small river called the Upputeru ('salt river') which drains a land-locked tidal swamp four square miles in extent and the land behind it,and flows to the sea over a sandy bar of the usual kind. This swamp, which (see the map) is crossed by the railway line leading to the port, runs along the west side of Vizagapatam town and crowds it into a narrow triangle at the apex of which is a small eminence called Ross' Hill and at its base a higher and larger height formed of rock but covered with blown sand. Close under the west side of this latter runs the main bazaar-street leading north-eastwards to Waltair, a clean, bright, well-built line of houses wearing a prosperous air.
Waltair, which includes not only the native village of that name, but all the area between ' Rock House' on the map and the northern extremity of the municipality, is built on a stretch of very broken ground which runs up to about 250 feet above the sea and is partly barren, rocky soil dotted with black boulders and stunted scrub and partly a curious vivid red earth. Towards the sea, the latter has been worn by the streams which cross it (see the map) into a series of impassable crevasses and gullies separated from one another by hummocks and pinnacles of fantastic shapes. The scene from this high ground is probably the most beautiful on the east coast of India. The sombre purples of the Dolphin's Nose on the south, the vivid chrome-yellow of the blown sand on the hill above Vizagapatam, the olive-coloured slopes of the scrub-covered heights scattered with glossy apple-green palmyras, the bright red soil running down to the sea and the dark trees at the northern end of the bay, backed as they all are by the brilliant turquoise of the Bay with its white edge of breakers, make up an unrivalled blaze of colour. The climate and temperature of this part of the place have already been referred to (p. 14). Among natives its air is reputed to be beneficial in lung troubles; and it is threatened in consequence with an invasion of Bengalis, who have already occupied several of its better houses.
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