676 Lieut. Kittoe's Journey through the Forests of Orissa. ^August, 



ed, the sites of many villages still appear. The people say that some 

 of the former rebel zemindars of Baumunghatti blocked up this road, 

 to compel the merchants to travel by the lower valley and through 

 the town of that name; whatever truth there may be in this, it is 

 equally probable that the thoroughfare was closed to keep out the 

 Marhatta plunderers towards the end of the last century. I have 

 traced this high road as far as the Byeturni and I have no doubt that 

 it continued on to Sumbulpur and thence to the western coast. 



I halted for the day at the village of Bissai, this place, was together 

 with every other in the valley, destroyed by the Coles in 1834-35, it 

 has been partly rebuilt; before its destruction it extended for near a 

 mile in length, but like most towns in Orissa, it had no depth. I con- 

 tinued my march and survey up the valley by the regular dawk stages 

 and halted for a day at Nowagaon, which place I have before men- 

 tioned. Many small villages had sprung up since my visit on my march 

 from Sumbulpur, but every one had suffered more or less from the 

 herd of wild elephants, sixty in number, which infest this valley and 

 the surrounding country; these beasts had thrown down the huts 

 to obtain the small stores of grain, and had destroyed every description 

 of cultivation from one end of the valley to the other. Many people 

 had put bags of poisoned rice in their stores but the sagacious beasts 

 were not to be caught. I was told that since a number were destroyed 

 by a Gosain many years ago, by poison, not one has taken the bait. 



Nowagaon is (as I have said before) within a couple of miles of the 

 westernmost extremity of the valley ; it has once been a large town and 

 on the old road, the course of which is apparent from the rows of aged 

 peepul, banyan, jaumun, mango, and other trees, there is a place near this 

 village held sacred, it consists of the remains of a temple under a clump 

 of enormous trees of various kinds ; to the branches of one of them, are 

 nailed numerous pieces of iron chains of various sizes, which must have 

 been fixed there as offerings to the destructive deity, whom the poor 

 inhabitants suppose to live in a cavern at the top of one of the high 

 hills which tower above the valley on its north side, close to the vil- 

 lage ; they believe that at night, she comes from her retreat and with 

 the chains fastens up her herd of tigresses for the purpose of milking 

 them. They further relate that whenever the villagers neglect to make 

 the usual offerings of milk, rice, and fowls, she becomes enraged and 

 loosens some of her tigers, who never fail to carry off both men and 

 cattle. The poor zemindar could not understand why I did not make 

 some offering, I could not speak Ooreyah, therefore I was unable to ex- 

 plain the folly of such degrading superstition. 



