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C. W. ODLING^ C.S.I., M.INST. C.E., ON OEISSA : 



So much for the history of the country, Turning to its 

 present condition, the province of Orissa consists both 

 politically and geographically of two distinct tracts, the delta, 

 of rice-fields and swamps reaching from the mountains to the 

 sea, and the hill country at the back, stretching into Central 

 India. The hills range in height from 500 to 4,000 feet, above 

 mean sea level, and are for the most part covered with forests,, 

 in which sal, a valuable tree that rises to 60 or 70 feet in 

 height, and thorny bamboos predominate. Through these hills- 

 three great rivers make their way to the plains below, on 

 entering which they divide and again intermingle in their path 

 to the sea. The greatest of these rivers, the Mahanadi, is, 

 during the rainy season, tw^o miles in width at Cuttack, 100 miles 

 further up, at Sambalpur, it is one mile wide, and in the Burmool 

 Pass, between these towns, w^here it is narrowed by the hills, it 

 has been known in flood time to rise 70 feet above its summer 

 level. In the dry w^eather it is fordable in places with some little 

 difficulty. The Kiver Brahmini is about a mile wide where it 

 enters the plains and the Byturni half a mile. Both these 

 rivers are easily fordable in summer. Smaller, yet still 

 considerable rivers, are the Subunreka, the Burabolong and the 

 Salundi. In the south there is a large expanse of water 

 known as the Chilka lake. The rich delta is under the direct 

 administration of the British Government, whilst the hill 

 country is governed by native chiefs, who, so far as their own 

 subjects are concerned, settle all civil disputes and have a 

 limited criminal jurisdiction. Sterling remarks that the hill 

 states were exempted from the operation of the British laws, as 

 a matter of convenience and not to any claim the rulers had to 

 independent authority, but in the eighties, the question in some 

 way or other came before the Privy Council, and that august 

 authority ruled that they were not British territory at all, with 

 the result that some Acts of the Indian Legislature which had 

 l)een expressly extended to tliem were, in this res])ect, repealed. 

 But the control remains and is possibly more effective when 

 the orders passed by the Executive Government cannot be 

 questioned in a court of law. 



The inhabitants of the hill states are mainly the hill tribes of 

 whom I have spoken, but there is a varying proportion of 

 Hindus who occupy the best lands, fill the State offices, and 

 gather together the few rupees that may be obtained. Tliere is 

 a more primitive system of government still in the Kandh 

 mehals, once a part of the native state of Boad, but annexed by 

 the British Government as the Pajah was unable to put a stop 



