^4 



were not practicable for wheels, and when the most wealthy 

 used light carriages, they rarely left the precincts of their 

 villages. The only ' made roads,' if they deserved the name, 

 were the mountain passes which in the later wars were opened 

 for the passage of artillery, but they had generally been des- 

 troyed by the monsoon rains before the country came into the 

 possession of the Company. The only proof of attention to 

 the great roads was to be seen in the fine avenues of trees, 

 which in some districts measured several hundred miles in 

 length ; but as the roadways beneath them had never been 

 properly formed or drained, and bridges had not been built, nor 

 care taken to keep the pathway practicable, they were roads no 

 longer ; but in most cases from being worn down by former 

 traffic and. washed by the rains of the monsoon, they had 

 become the drain of the country that they passed and were so 

 much more rugged than the land on either side that their only 

 use was as a guide to travellers who took a course as nearly 

 parallel as the ground permitted." Prior to 1823, the English 

 Government too had paid little or no attention to the improve- 

 ment of communications, and its efforts in that direction up to 

 the date of the report of the Public Works Commission had 

 been feeble and intermittent. The Commissioners state that 

 "in 1846 there were 3,110 miles of road called made road, but 

 a large part of even this small extent was totally unbridged 

 and totally unmade, consisting of tracks over a firm soil not 

 considered to need making for the light traffic then using 

 them ; " that, with the exception of the districts of Salem, 

 Madura, Tanjore and South Canara, the roads in the several 

 districts were practically impassable during the rainy season ; 

 and that in most parts '^ the tracks by which the carts travel 

 had never been made or improved, but are such as the carts are 

 able to strike out for themselves, winding their way as best 

 they can through the natural obstacles of the country, which 

 are in some parts greater, in others less ; in some parts rocks 

 and hills, in others swamps and muddy streams, in others rice 

 flats and irrigation channels." " Through, or round, or over 

 these various difficulties" add the Commissioners "the carts 

 find their way as best they can, changing their line from time to 

 time at particular points, as the old tracks there become 

 impracticable, and gradually deviating more and more from a 

 straight line. On such roads the carts can only carry one-third 

 of the load that they could on a good road and travel one-half 

 the distance in a day, and there are many days in a year in 

 which they cannot travel at all, and all perishable goods, sugar, 

 cotton ap.d (^ven grain are much exposed to damage." Ih illus- 

 tration of their remarks, the Commissioners give thti following 



