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



cold weather I had occasional visitors, who were very welcome ; 

 but the place was difficult of access, and even official inspections 

 were not frequent. I had an average of more than 10,000 

 workmen employed daily, and lots of varied occupation, so that 

 I had but little time to bewail the want of society. The 

 climate had its defects : the cold weather lasted two months 

 only, December and January ; on the other hand, the sea was 

 only fifty miles distant ; and there was, exceptiiig in the rainy 

 season, a refreshing breeze at night. 



Orissa was, until the railway was constructed some seven or 

 eight years ago, looked on as rather the "back of beyond," and 

 the inhabitants have the reputation of being the Boeotians of 

 India. They were the first natives of India, with whom I was 

 brought into contact, and perhaps owing to my being stationed 

 away from other Europeans, I became better acquainted with 

 them than most Government officials; their good qualities as 

 well as their deficiencies came under my notice daily. I have 

 not lived in Orissa since 1875, but I have never ceased to have 

 a kindly feeling for them and to look on Indians generally 

 from what I may call an Uriya point of view. I think that 1 

 attained some kind of an idea what, under given circumstances, 

 they were likely to do to-morrow, and I am quite certain that I 

 never advanced so far with regard to the natives of any other 

 part of India where I have resided. 



Many Uriyas are employed in Calcutta ; canying palanquins 

 used to be their special business, but since the tramways have 

 started that mode of transit is fast disappearing. The jute and 

 cotton mills are full of them, and many are employed by the 

 Municipality on the waterworks and roads. It is very seldom 

 that these men are accompanied by their families ; usually, after 

 working in Calcutta for a year or so, they return to their liomes 

 for a spell of rest. Some go to the Assam tea gardens and 

 a good many to Mauritius and other Britisli colonies, in which 

 case they must be accompanied by a prescribed proportion of 

 their womenkind. They are found all over Eastern India as 

 bearers, a compound of liousemaid and valet, aud in this 

 position they usually manage to become head servant and the 

 dislmrser of small payments. Sterling, in 1846, remarked that 

 in them the virtues of fidelity and honesty, accorcUng to their 

 own ideas of these qualities, were conspicuous. I had one of 

 these bearers, a milkman by caste, in my employment for 

 thirty-five years. Early in my career, when living at I^atamundi 

 on the river ]5rahmini, a place, by the way, where the first 

 missionaries to Orissa landed, I got a severe attack of fever. I 



