}2 king: nelloke portion of the carnatic. 



actually belonging to the area are not of much importance. The Penner 

 receives only the waters of a few small streams, prior to which it comes 

 suddenly on the field with a nearly completed course through the clean- 

 cut pass 1 in the Veligondas, thence flowing nearly due east to the sea in 

 the shortest line it could take past Nellore. 



The Swaraamukhi, though much smaller, is still a large river as com- 

 pared with others in the district, and it brings down a large volume of 

 water, many of its best feeders being in the neighbourhood of the Chit- 

 tur hills. It is also from this side of the country that some of the best 

 affluents of the Penner fetch its waters. The Swarnamukhi follows a much 

 more irregular course to the sea, and does not show that decided general 

 easterly trend as it approaches the coast, which is a marked feature in 

 the Penner and the other large rivers of Southern India. It also enters 

 the country by a wide open valley, and only meets its later alluvial 

 banks at a few miles from the sea. The other stream worthy of note is 

 the Kandleru, the larger affluent of which rises in the Veligondas behind 

 the Venkatagiri and Rapiir country and meets it in the alluvial flat of 

 coastal deposits near Giiditr, whence it flows to, and enters the sea by, 

 the large back-water at Kristapatnam. To the north of the Penner, 

 there are only two small rivers flowing direct to the sea, which at flood 

 times break the sand barrier to the eastward of Allur at Thulipallem, 

 and again near Juviladinne . 



The noticeable feature in the course of the Penner is that it passes 

 The passage of the right through or across the western mountain wall, 2 

 Penner at the ghats. having worn its way downwards into the transi- 



tion rocks covering the greater part of the Cuddapah district to the 



1 So suddenly and with such a gathering do the waters of this large river rise at the 

 gorge, that the flood waters have occasionally been reported as reaching the anicut at 

 Nellore before the runners can signal that preparation should be made at Nellore to meet 

 the flood. 



2 It is as well to notice the mistaken, though oft-repeated, view that this and other 

 great rivers, such as the Godavari, further north, have absolutely cut through what are 

 now, in point of fact, walls of mountains, some 1,000 or 3,000 feet in height, whereas the 

 wall or basin is merely one of the results of the river denudation of the area of varied 

 and softer strata behind the less destructible band of mountain rocks. 



( 120 ) 



