PLACES IN TANJORE. 



83 



SOUTH TANJORE. 



The following remarks on the place-names of the country 

 along the coast south of the Kaveri Delta and as far as 

 Ramnad are based on the lists collected during the season 

 1876-77 in the absence of the writer :— 



The country traversed to which alone the following 

 remarks apply extends only some twenty miles inland from 

 the coast of Palks Straits, the sinus Argaricus of the ancient 

 geographers, and lies between the deltas of the Kaveri and 

 the Yaigai (? Yeghavati). 



It is crossed by a few unimportant streams and water- 

 courses, the principal of which is the southern Yellar, 

 draining the Tondiman or Pudukottai Rajah's territory, 

 he being the chief, and that the home, of the Kallar tribe. 



Going north-eastwards from Ramnad (Ramanathapuram 

 = Lord Rama's town) the home of the Maravar tribe, the 

 country changes : the flat sandy tracts of the south coast of 

 Madura are left behind, and so are the numerous large 

 tanks and their long collecting channels, which are spread 

 over the impervious black (cotton) soil, and the tracts of rice 

 cultivation below them, characteristic of the alluvial tracts 

 formed by the Yaigai, the river of Madura. 



On entering south Tan j ore, across the Pambanar, though 

 still low and flat, the slope of the country from the sea coast 

 landwards increases from 2 to about 10 feet per mile. 

 A succession of ridges and depressions, some of them 50 feet 

 in depth, run from W.N.W. to E. S. E., the former well 

 wooded with valuable trees, and the latter covered with 

 patches of low-land cultivation (vayal). 



This change of country is indicated or illustrated by the 

 prevalent place-names. 



There are few towns or large villages, and the village lands 

 (gramam) resemble townships, parishes, or communes, con- 



