60 



the absence of roads, pack bullocks and coolies were the only 

 means of conveyance 60 or 70 years ago, and the cost of trans- 

 port of bulky articles for long distances was consequently 

 prohibitive. Buchanan, Writing in 1800, states that the wage 

 of a cooly in the Coimbatore district for carrying a man's load 

 10 miles was 2 gopali fanams or 5 annas 4 pies. The pacifica- 

 tion of the country led to a revival of trade and the increase 

 in the means of conveyance, and we accordingly find that the 

 rate was reduced to 2 annas 6 pies in 1804 and to 2 annas in 

 1839. The hire of a bullock carrying, say, 200 lb. 10 miles 

 was 5 annas in 1809 and 4 annas in 1839. The Collector 

 of Coimbatore writing in the latter year gives the following as 

 the cost of carriage for 100 miles of 1 ton of goods by men, 

 pack bullocks and carts — by coolies Es. 21-14-0; by pack 

 bullocks Es. 10-15-0; by bandies Es. 8-12-0. The figures 

 show, as might be expected, that carriage by coolies even in 

 those days was the most expensive of all modes of conveyance. 

 In Nellore the cost of carrying 1 putti of grain (742 Madras 

 measures) was 1 star pagoda and 5 fanams or Es, 4 for every 8 

 miles in 1805. Carts were not used in the district then or for 

 a long time afterwards. The Collector writing in 1847 mentions 

 as a novelty that he had for the first time used carts during his 

 tours. The cost of carriage of grain by means of pack bullocks 

 for a distance of 8 miles amounted to one-third of the value of 

 the grain which could not therefore be profitably transported to 

 places distant even 24 miles, unless the price at the place of 

 import was more than double that at the place of production. 

 Piece-goods manufactured at Nellorewere carried all the way 

 to Madras — a distance of 110 miles — on the heads of coolies. 

 Wdlajdh was a great emporium of trade and consequently the 

 cost of carriage to that station was lower than to other places. 

 Buchanan mentions that in 1800 the hire of a bullockload of 

 8 maunds or 200 lb. from Bangalore to Walajdh — a distance 

 of 145 miles — was Rs. 1-4-0 or Es. 1-8-0 according to the 

 nature of the goods carried, and these rates, allowing for the fall 

 in the purchasing power of the rupee, would be equivalent to 

 Es. 2 or Rs. 2-8-0 at the present day. In the case of grain the 

 cost of carriage often exceeded the value of the grain. The 

 result was violent fluctuations in one direction or the other in 

 prices according as the harvests were good or bad, and it 

 often happened that, while in one tract of country people were 

 in the midst of plenty, in an adjoining tract not far distant the 

 inhabitants were suffering the direst distress. When the 

 terrible famine of 1833 was raging in Guntiir, there was plenty 

 of grain in Malabar and South Canara where it was being sold 



