6 KING : COASTAL "REGION OP THE GODAVARI DISTUTCT. 



Range ; and the Eleru, Golgonda, and Pandaru rivers in the Rampa and 

 Vizagapatam area ; but the country is cut right across by the waters of 

 the great Godavari river which have been collected behind and far to 

 the north-westward of the Eastern Ghats through which the famous 

 gorge or defile passes (See plates 1 and 2). 



The mountain passage of this river is a deep and tortuous trench, 

 with a V-shaped section of about 12 miles 

 in length, of which 4 miles in the middle may 

 be said to be the proper gorge, the river being here about 300 yards 

 wide/ while the mountain spurs rise more abruptly to a height of over 

 2,000 feet. Here the river is more like a loch or fiord lying among 

 lofty mountains, and it is often difficult, as one is floating along, to 

 guess where any outlet can be, specially when the lofty flat-topped 

 ' Bison Hill' 3 is in front (See Plate 2). But the wonder of this river- 

 pass is, as to how and why it should have been cut down through this 

 2,000 feet high range of crystalline rocks, when to all appearance the 

 river might have pursued its course through the more easily-worn 

 sandstone of the low water shed 3 to the south-west, near Ashwaraopet 

 where the great gap (crossed by the Kistna) in the continuity of the 

 Eastern Ghats commences. 



1 Mr. Vanstaveren, lately resident engineer on the Upper Godavari, informs me that the 

 narrowest part of the gorge is 832 feet across ; the deepest sounding taken hy him was 

 121 feet, with a bottom of soft blackish clay, the shallowest parts being 63 feet. The 

 bottom towards the sides is very uneven and rocky, but the mid-channel is pretty even. 



2 Another name for the Kaurkonda hill, overlooking the right bank of 'the river, said 

 to be over 2,500 feet in height, and one of the few spots in this part of the Presidency still 

 frequented by bison. An attempt was made several years ago to utilise this plateau as a 

 sanitarium for the men employed on the works at Dowlaishweram, but it was found to be 

 feverish, and the supply of water was poor. 



3 I have not been able to obtain the level of this water-shed above the sea, but it can 

 scarcely be more than 200 feet. The country is wonderfully flat at the shed and away 

 down on either side of it; in fact, it appeared to me that the height can hardly be so much 

 as this. At any rate, there is a tradition (told me by Mr. Vanstaveren of Damagudeni 

 on the Godavari, formerly Executive Engineer at that place) among the people that the 

 Godavari was very many years ago so ponded up behind its gorge in a great flood, that its 

 waters actually poured .over this water-shed ! This appeared so amazing a phenomenon that 

 we could hardly believe it. However, subsequently when working at the Beddadanol coal-field 



( 200 ) 



