CHAPTER VIII.
RAINFALL AND SEASONS.
Rainfall. Famine—The conditions existing —Famine in 1791—The 'Guntur famine' of 1833—Distress in 1835-38— Disasters of 1839-41—Improvement resulting from the anicut—Scarcity in the Agency, 1897. Inundations by the sea—About 1706—In 1787—Its extent and effects—The accompanying hurricane—The landholders' losses—Inundation of 1839. Cyclones. Floods—In 1614—In 1S75, 1878, 1882, 1883 and 1884—Great flood of 1886—Floods of 1887 and 1892—Of 1895-96—Of 1900.
The following table shows the average rainfall in certain seasons of the year in the various taluks and in the district as a whole. The seasons selected correspond roughly with what may be called the dry weather, the hot weather, the south- west monsoon and the north-east monsoon. The figures shown are the averages of a series of years. As will be seen, records have been kept at most of the stations for more than thirty years. Those where figures for only a few years are available have been entered separately and not included in the district average : —
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is much weaker in this district than in many other parts of the east coast. The rain it brings generally consists of a very heavy downpour on its first arrival, and after the 15th November rain worth mentioning rarely appears. The delta benefits more from this north-east monsoon than the uplands; whereas the latter get more rain in the hot weather than the former. The annual average fall for the whole district (40.26 inches) is moderately high for this Presidency. In only eight other districts is the amount greater. Vizagapatam on the north gets rather more rain, and Ganjám a good deal more; but Kistna on the south receives much less.
The highest fall on record is that at Chódavaram in 1893, which amounted to 86'02 inches. Twenty-two inches fell in September, over twelve in June, August and October, and over nine more in July and November. In the same year 85'85 inches of rain were registered at Amalápuram. The lowest fall recorded for any station is 13'40 inches at Tuni in 1876. No rain was received from January to April or from October to December, inclusive, in that year.
The major part of the district is, humanly speaking, safe from anything in the nature of a famine. The Gódávari draws its water from vast and distant tracts and is not affected by any local failure of rain; and from the time that the anicut first made this river's supplies regularly available for cultivation, the delta has never felt the want of water. In the upland and hill tracts, however, the crops are precarious, and in the Agency the danger is aggravated by the improvidence of the inhabitants. The people there, on the other hand, are accustomed to eking out a livelihood in bad seasons on toddy, gruel made from the pulp of tamarind, jack and mango seeds, and jungle roots. The delta produces vast quantities more food than is required for the subsistence of its own inhabitants, and also provides a constant field for labour; so that no one in the uplands need ever starve for want of work if he will make up his mind to travel so far.
Before the construction of the anicut, however, the whole district suffered cruelly on several occasions from terrible famines due to drought. It was the recollection and the effects of these visitations which suggested the idea of constructing the anicut1[1] and induced the Government to face the expense which that project involved. Inundations from the sea have also caused much loss of life and property in the past, and so have cyclones, though no serious damage caused by either has been experienced for many years; and a fourth variety of natural disaster to which the delta is particularly subject is floods in the Gódávari river, which have not only been common in past years, but even nowadays, in spite of the utmost efforts, frequently cause considerable loss and hardship. The various occasions on which serious disaster or suffering has been experienced from these four different causes will now be shortly referred to.
Except for vague references by native historians, there is, as usual, no record of the famines which doubtless occurred before the days of British occupation. The first visitation of which particulars survive is that which desolated the Northern Circars in 1791-92. In January of the latter year the Board of Revenue said that the extreme drought had caused a large diminution of revenue and that 'though every alleviation in our power has been afforded by the suspension of duties on grain as well as on all necessaries of life, and every exertion is making by the Collectors to discover and distribute for the general consumption such grain as may be hoarded up by individuals for their private advantage, yet many of the poorer class of inhabitants are perishing from want.' Application was made to the Government to sanction the importation of rice from Bengal, and 'every effort seems to have been made by Government and individuals for affording temporary means of subsistence to the poorer class of people,' but in April 1792 the sufferings of the inhabitants still continued 'with little prospect of immediate relief.' Numbers had died and numbers more had emigrated; and the Board feared that the decrease of population and cultivation would long be felt.
At that time a large sum was due to pensioners in the zamindaris of Masulipatam; and Government ordered that any balance of this which remained unclaimed at the end of a month from the date of notice to that effect, should be devoted to relieving distress. Over 35,000 pagodas (Rs. 1,40,000)2[2] were applied to this purpose, and the children of the poorer families were collected and fed at the public expense. Large remissions were also granted to the zamindars and extensions of their leases were sanctioned. The famine appears to have lasted from November 1790 to November 1792.1[3] Its effect on the people was terrible. It was computed that one-fourth of them either emigrated or fell victims to starvation.2[4]
In 1833 a succession of unfavourable seasons culminated in the great 'Guntúr famine.' Though this did not affect Gódávari so severely as the neighbouring district of Guntúr after which it was named (where 'it covered the country with human bones from Ongole to Masulipatam'3[5]) yet so deeply did the remembrance of it enter into the hearts of the people that it afterwards became an era from which they reckoned dates. The author of the original Manual of this district, who knew the country well, says4[6] 'I have frequently asked a man his age, and he has been unable to state it; but he was quite ready to answer the question how old were you at the time of the Great Famine?'
The hardships appear to have begun with a hurricane in May 1832, which 'destroyed much produce stored, a large number of cattle, and many cocoa, palmyra and betel nut trees.'5[7] This was followed by a failure of rain in western India and a consequent lack of freshes in the Gódávari, so that the paddy crop usually grown along the banks of that river was lost. A temporary rise of the river in the early part of the season had induced the ryots to commence this cultivation; and their disappointment was thus the more bitter. Gódávari, however, did not suffer either so soon or so severely as the districts to the south of the river. As late as April 1833 the Collector was able to report that though a great influx of distressed people had taken place from Masulipatam and Guntúr, and great distress prevailed on account of the high price of grain; yet 'the miserable creatures that everywhere meet the eye are principally other than the local inhabitants.'
But from that time forward matters gradually became worse. The contributions cheerfully given by the wealthier Europeans and natives were quite inadequate to the needs of the case. From March 1833 to the end of July private subscriptions enabled about 3,000 people to be fed every day, and it was hoped that a good monsoon might render Government relief unnecessary. But these hopes were disappointed, and assistance had at length to be demanded from the State. Relief-works, chiefly the digging of tanks, were opened in August, but gratuitous relief was prohibited, and many of the higher castes preferred to starve rather than demean them- selves by doing earth-work. The relief afforded seems in any case to have been quite inadequate to the distress. Thousands of persons emigrated to Madras and to other more fortunate districts. 'A stream of pilgrims flowed night and day towards the south .... The great northern road soon became one long graveyard. It was often most difficult to distinguish between the dying and the dead.'1[8] Young girls were sold and sent away to Hyderabad; the scarcity of water added the torments of thirst to those of hunger; and grain could not be transported without armed escorts, since the villagers turned out en masse when they heard of the approach of grain merchants with a convoy of food, and tried to obtain possession of it by force. Happily the famine did not last more than a year, and seems to have come to an end before the beginning of 1834.
The two following seasons were favourable, but there was a general failure of the monsoons between 1835 and 1838. In the first of these years the early rains were deficient and yet many of the crops were destroyed by inundations; in the next there was continued drought, and in 1837-38 the early showers again failed and the later rainfall was excessive.2[9] The year 1838-39 is described in the report of Sir Henry Montgomery, who based his statements 'on his own observations, and enquiries from persons of all classes, confirmed by the periodical reports of the different Collectors,' as one of 'extreme distress little less than famine, equal if not exceeding in calamities that of 1832-33.' This however seems to have been an over-statement of the case. Want of sufficient rain ruined the 'white' paddy crop; and though in December a few showers saved the cholam harvest near Rajahmundry, in the north of the district that crop was lost too. Small relief-works (the deepening of tanks) were started by private philanthropy in Rajahmundry; and these were taken over by Government in February 1839, in which month 450 persons were daily employed upon them. Relief-works were also started at Samalkot in March. In June, good rain put a stop to the sufferings of the people. Altogether only Rs. 6,156 were spent on public relief, so the scarcity appears to have been far from severe. Two factors united to prevent more serious results: the area affected was not large, and the price of grain was kept down by liberal importations by sea. The season of 1839-40 began propitiously; but towards the middle of the year the district was visited by the disastrous cyclone and inundation referred to below. In 1840-41 'the early rains were again wanting, the north-east monsoon failed, and sickness was prevalent.'
This unfortunate cycle had thus lasted twelve years, and Sir Henry Montgomery summed up the case by saying that of these twelve 'five were marked by peculiar distress and three were bad.' The population, which in 1821 had amounted to 738,308, had decreased by 1839-40 to 533,836. Gódávari fell into a state even more miserable than that of the Northern Circars generally at that time, and at length Sir Henry Montgomery was deputed to take charge of the district as Special Commissioner1[10] and to report what could be done to raise it from its lamentable state of depression. His report, as has already (p. 80) been seen, resulted in the construction of the anicut at Dowlaishweram, which changed the whole face of the delta and delivered it from any future fear of famine. No general distress has been experienced since it was built. Even the great famine of 1876-78 did not seriously affect this district, and men and cattle fled to it then in large numbers from the famine-stricken tracts in Kurnool, Bellary and Nellore.2[11]
In 1896-98 failure of the monsoons caused a good deal of suffering throughout the Agency, especially in Bhadráchalam and Pólavaram. Indeed the jungle people were perhaps harder hit by this famine than by that of 1833. The Rev. J. Cain of Dummagúdem describes a conversation with an old man who remembered the latter, and who compared the two by saying, 'There were fewer of us then, and the forests had not been cut down, and there were plenty of roots.'
In 1896 Bhadráchalam and Yellavaram suffered from short rainfall, but a remission of 50 per cent, of the dry assessment was sufficient to enable the ryots to last out till the end of the year 1896-97, and no relief was necessary.
Things were much worse in the following year. The south-west monsoon stopped on the l8th June, and distress amounting to famine in Bhadráchalam, and verging upon famine in Pólavaram, was the result. Yellavaram and Chódavaram had rather more rain, and in these all that was needed was to assist for a short time a few aged or infirm people, who could not support themselves and had no one to maintain them. In Pólavaram and Bhadráchalam it was necessary to open relief-works. Matters were made worse by the fact that, acting on a general belief (encouraged by the astrologers) that three whole years of famine were impending, the sowcars refused to give the hill people the usual advances on the security of their crops upon which they generally subsist in the interval between sowing and harvest.
Relief-works were opened, but, except in Bhadráchalam, the hill men absolutely refused to come to them. In Pólavaram they preferred to help themselves in their own lawless manner by plundering their richer neighbours. Collecting in gangs, they looted no less than 39 villages in seven days; and, as the local police were afraid to act, order was not restored till the District Superintendent of Police arrived with the Reserve, and marched a number of the rioters off to prison. The villagers had not resisted the robbers, so no blood had been spilt, but it was estimated that property worth Rs. 10,000 had been stolen during these riots. Meanwhile in Bhadráchalam works were opened in May 1897 and a fair number of Kóyas attended them.
Gratuitous relief was given on a large scale in this taluk, but to a less extent in the rest of the Agency where either the distress was not so acute, or the hill men had helped themselves by robbery. In Bhadráchalam nearly Rs. 12,000 were distributed in this way, and nearly Rs. 17,000 were spent from charitable funds when the distress was at an end in buying seed-grain, cattle, etc. and selling them at low rates to the impoverished people to enable them to start cultivating again.
It was not in the Agency alone that the pinch of these years was felt. Test works had to be opened in Rajahmundry and Cocanada taluks and in Ellore, then a part of this district; and nearly Rs. 7,000 were spent on works in these three areas. A little gratuitous relief was also given in Rajahmundry, and a poor-house was established at Cocanada.
Inundations of the coast by the sea occurred fairly frequently in former times, and Mr. Topping, the astronomer, when making enquiries about them in 1789, found that they were so well known as to have a definite name, being called uppena 1.[12]
The earliest of which any record survives occurred in December about the year 1706, but all that is known of it is derived from the oral testimony of a very old man some eighty-three years later. The wind had been blowing very hard from the east for two days and the sea burst upon the land during the night. A few lives were lost in the neighbourhood of Coringa, innumerable trees were blown down, the paddy was ruined, the springs of fresh-water were spoiled and quantities of salt were deposited upon the flooded ground.1[13]
The next inundation which occurred was that of May 20, 1787. This was so extraordinary in its violence that it was commonly supposed to have been due to an earthquake, but Mr. Topping 2[14] ascribed it firstly to a 'violent and long-continued gale 3[15] from the North-East at a time when the South-West Monsoon should prevail, and had actually set in many weeks previous to it, checking the Northerly current and forcing the waters back upon the coast'; secondly to 'the configuration of the coast itself, peculiarly favourable to such an accident at such a crisis,'in particular 'the sudden projection of Point Gardewar (Gódávari) and the situation of Coringa in the recess or cul-de-sac of a bay'; and finally to the fact that the inundation occurred at the spring tides of the new moon. 'In short there happened at that fatal juncture a union of almost every cause that could have a tendency to elevate the waters of the Sea.'
Pitiable details of the havoc wrought by this hurricane and flood are to be found in the correspondence from the then Chief and Council of Masulipatam.4[16] Coringa island and the country near Injaram were flooded, and so was Narasapur. The hurricane raged with increasing violence from the l6th of May onwards. On the 20th 'about ten in the morning,' writes the Resident of Injaram on the 22nd and 23rd May; —
'The sea rushed in upon us and inundated everything. On the morning of the 21st everything was desolation. The whole town of Coringa and all the little villages about, with the inhabitants, (were) carried away. Nellapillee is in not much better state. As yet I cannot ascertain what loss the Hon'ble Company may have sustained; but I suppose it is in proportion to the loss of individuals, which in fact amounts to everything we possessed. . ... . . The poor black people are now running up and down crying and lamenting the loss of relations from the inundation. The springs and wells all around are choked with salt water, and we have only to depend on the heavens for a supplv of fresh water. Cattle, grain and everything carried away. . . I now request in the most earnest manner that you will with the utmost despatch send to this place by dónis or any other sea conveyance what quantity of grain you may be able to collect. The remaining part of the black inhabitants, who escaped from the inundation of the sea, are now dying by dozens for want of food; and, if we do not receive supplies very soon, very soon there will not be a native alive in the Nillapillce havelly.'
His letters also contain a distressing account'of the sufferings of the European men and women in the place, all of whom, however, escaped with their lives. Five hundred bags of rice and other provisions were despatched to Injaram from Madras before the end of the month, and this terminated the immediate sufferings of the natives. Further down the coast, the inundation was much less felt; and the reports from Narasapur complain less of it than of the hurricane.
This hurricane not only wrecked a great number of ships along the coast but was also felt far inland. As far north as Yernagúdem (now in the Kistna district) the camp of a detachment of sepoys was completely wrecked. 'The trees under which the tents were, fell upon them and tore them to pieces,' writes an officer on May 23rd. 'With the greatest exertion the ammunition was saved. The men were flying about like footballs endeavouring to find the village. Lieutenant Cuningham and I very nearly lost our lives in the same attempt. . . When we reached the village (we) found nothing but the walls of the houses and the greatest misery among the inhabitants.' A similar story is told of the effects of the storm at Samalkot. 'This dreadful hurricane has not left a roof standing even to the Commanding Officer's house. A range of barracks for two battalions, the guard-room and several other buildings are level with the ground.' So great was the force of the wind that near Yernagúdem scarcely a tree was left standing, and at Narasapur for some time no one could stand upright.
The zamindars suffered very considerably from this visitation, but they seem all to have much overstated their losses in order to support extravagant demands for remissions of revenue, and the real amount of these seems never to have been even approximately ascertained. An officer who was directed to enquire into their extent in this district assessed them at over sixteen lakhs; but his data were of a very doubtful character, and both the Council of Masulipatam and the Board of Revenue considered his estimate 'entirely inadmissible.' In the end no remissions were given, but forbearance was shown in the collection of the kists.
In 1839 a cyclone raged all along the coast from Vizagapatam to Narasapur. It was accompanied by a tidal wave which burst upon the shore and inundated Cocanada and Coringa. Much of the shipping was driven on shore, some of the wrecked vessels being carried, it was said, four miles inland. The loss of life and property was very great. The merchants' storehouses at Coringa and Injaram were ruined; cattle and crops were destroyed; large tracts of land were rendered unfit for cultivation by the salt water; and the tanks and wells were rendered brackish from the same cause. The force of the wind was also most destructive. Very many of the native houses in Samalkot were blown down, all the European houses except two were unroofed, and even in Rajahmundry some of the houses were nearly dismantled by the violence of the storm.
Since then no serious inundations from the sea have occurred in this district. The destructive tidal wave which desolated Masulipatam just a quarter of a century later did not affect Gódávari.
The inundations just described were usually accompanied (if not caused) by violent storms, and some of these were doubtless cyclonic in nature. In more recent times, four cyclones occurred in the ten years preceding 1878, all in the months between September and December. In November and December 1878, two others arrived which caused the sea to rise dangerously at Cocanada, destroyed a good deal of cultivation there, submerged some of the huts near the creek, blew down a number of mud houses and trees, and killed many cattle. In October 1904 a cyclone swept across the whole country levelling many trees in the Agency and thousands of cocoa and areca palms in the coast taluks. So universal was the damage to plantain gardens that plantains had actually to be imported from Tanjore. Since that year no violent cyclone has visited the district, but the barometer is always carefully watched in the months (September-December) when they are most to be expected.
The fury of the Gódávari in full flood has always excited the wonder of those who have seen it. The irresistible torrent which pours through the deep gorges in the hills through which it forces its way has been referred to on p. 5. Sir Henry Montgomery, when pressing for the construction of an anicut across the river, could not deny that 'the Gódávari, when filled as it was in the early part of the present season (1843-44), is a fearful stream, overflowing the country through which it passes and carrying before it all impediments to its course.' Before the anicut was built and attempts to control the river were begun, destructive floods seem to have been constant, and even now, as has been more than once said, they occur every now and again, The earliest of which any record is extant happened in and about Narasapur in 1614. The account of an English merchant, quoted in Sir H. Montgomery's report, says: 'In August there happened a greater overflow than had been seen in twenty-nine years. The whole Salt Hills, Towns, and Rice were drove away and many thousand men and cattle were drowned; the Water rising three Yards above the high way.'
The damage done by floods in later years to various parts of the anicut system has already been briefly noticed in Chapter IV.
The flood of July 1875, 'the greatest fresh that has occurred in the Gódávery since the extraordinary floods of 1862 and 1863,' did no great damage to the crops, though there were three breaches in the embankment of the Vasishta Gódávari.
That of August 1878, however, breached the head-sluice of the Bobbarlanka canal and submerged a large extent of land in the Amalápuram taluk. That taluk was 'mostly flooded and was at one time in imminent danger, so much so that it was considered advisable to remove the people to the high lands. But the timely action taken by the Department of Public Works saved the people and their property.' The crops suffered much less than was expected, and only Rs. 8,000 had to be remitted.
In June 1882 a destructive flood in the river inundated a large tract of country in Amalápuram and Nagaram, and did much harm to villages and crops. In Nagaram six villages were entirely, and eight partly, submerged. On the Kistna side of the river the damage was even greater. The engineers again exerted themselves to the utmost to save life and property, and the loss of crop was not very large.
In August 1883 a breach in the Vasishta Gódávari caused considerable damage to the crops in Narasapur.
A dangerous flood occurred in the Gautami Gódávari in August 1884. Some 300 houses valued at Rs. 11,500 were washed away; other property worth Rs. l8,200 was destroyed in the villages of Pillanka and Mallavaram in the Rámachandrapuram taluk; and 23 villages were submerged between the river and the Injaram canal. The damage to crops was estimated at Rs. 30,000, and serious breaches were made in the Kótipalli road.
The highest flood on record occurred in August 1886. The river was 14.5 feet deep on the anicut on the night of the 19th. By noon of the 20th it had risen to l6'2, and by 5 A.M. on the 2lst to l6'9 feet, above the anicut, or 1½ feet higher than any previously recorded flood. By 10 that night it had fallen to l6'5, by 6 A.M. on the 22nd to 16, and to I4'6 on the following morning. The outer wall of the Dowlaishweram lock was carried away, and a breach 250 yards long was made in the bank of the main canal, which resulted in the whole of the south-eastern corner of the Rajahmundry taluk being submerged. Many breaches also occurred in the central delta, the worst being in the Gannavaram canal, and whole tracts of country were under water. Fortunately, the inhabitants, with very few exceptions, succeeded in making their escape to natural eminences and the river and canal banks. The river also breached its bank near Pólavaram, flooded Pólavaram, and did a great deal of damage there and in Tállapúdi and some other villages.
The loss of crop was again nothing like so great as at one time seemed likely. It was estimated that the damage in Amalápuram and Rámachandrapuram was Rs. 48,000, and that houses in those taluks and Rajahmundry had suffered to about the same extent. In the district as it was then constituted Rs. 16,500 of land revenue and Rs. 45,000 of water-tax were remitted, and damage estimated at Rs. 15,000 was done to the flood-banks, canals and channels.
In July of the next year a high flood lasted for about twelve days. The river was 15'8 feet above the anicut on the 19th. A number of breaches occurred in the left bank of the Vasishta and a large one in the Vainatéyam, and some 2,200 acres of wet crop were lost. This was mostly replanted again and the remission of revenue on account of the submersion of crops amounted to only Rs. 6,400.
On October 3rd, 1891, the river attained the unparalleled height of l6'9 feet above the anicut; but no breaches occurred. A flood of only 12'9 feet in September of the following year breached the Cocanada and Samalkot canals (the latter in thirteen places) as well as the river flood-banks above the anicut. Scarcely any harm was done to the crops; but the budget allotment for repairs to the delta works had to be increased by Rs. 30,000, chiefly on account of the repairs rendered necessary on the Samalkot canal.
The crops in Amalápuram and Rámachandrapuram suffered from floods in 1895; but this was owing to excessive local rainfall, and not to the action of the river. Twenty inches of rain fell in 24 hours in Amalápuram on the 6th September, Remissions of revenue amounting to Rs. 10,000 were granted for submersion in these and the Rajahmundry taluks, and roads and trees suffered much more than the crops.
More serious damage was done by the river next year. Rising to 13'8 feet above the anicut on the 2nd August, the water made a large number of breaches in the canal and river banks, and rising again to 13'7 on the l6th much increased the harm already done.
The last of this long list of calamities occurred in 1900. Before daylight on the 14th August the river overtopped the lock and canal banks at Dummagúdem and completely flooded out that village, driving the inhabitants to the higher ground and drowning a few women and children. It breached its bank near the Vijésvaram anicut and did great damage to the works of the western delta in the present Kistna district; and the central delta was inundated through numerous breaches in the Gautami, Vasishta and Vainatéyam. Little harm was done to the eastern delta, though parts of Rajahmundry taluk were inundated by a breach in the flood-bank. The repairs to the breaches had not been finished before a slightly higher flood on the 22nd September (l5'8 feet over the anicut) opened many of them again. The damage done to the delta and Dummagúdem works was estimated at Rs. 10 lakhs. Only about Rs. 40,000 had to be remitted for submerged crop in the present district. The taluk worst affected was Amalápuram, where 4,000 houses were destroyed and some 70,000 acres of land were more or less damaged.
- ↑ 1 See Chapter IV, p. 80.
- ↑ 2 It is assumed that the pagoda was the local pagoda of four rupees.
- ↑ 1 Mr. Benson's Statistical Atlas (Madras, 1895), p. 62.
- ↑ 2 General reports of the Board of Revenue (Madras, 1871), ii, 130, 143, 145 iii, 2, 22, 31, 53, 73.
- ↑ 3 Statistical Atlas, p. 84.
- ↑ 4 P. 288.
- ↑ 5 Sir Henry Montgomery's report, dated 18th March 1844, para. 30,
- ↑ 1 District Manual, p. 289.
- ↑ 2 Sir Henry Montgomery's report already quoted, para. 30.
- ↑ 1 See Chapter XI, p, 167.
- ↑ 2 B.P. (Rev. Sett., L.R. and Agri.), No. 431, dated 12th March 1896, p. 12.
- ↑ 1 Selections from the Records of the Madras Government, No. XIX (Madras, 1855), 23.
- ↑ 1 Selections from the Records of the Madras Government, No. XIX (Madras, 1855), 23.
- ↑ 2 Ibid., p. 29.
- ↑ 3 This blew for six days without intermission.
- ↑ 4 See Extracts from the Public Consultations, pp. 1152-59 and 1202-10.