Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/284



272 NELLORE TOWN. and the prosperity of the cultivators is yearly increasing. Towards the south the ground is high and covered with brushwood. Large quantities of laterite are quarried in the neighbourhood of Nellore town, and used for building and for the repairs of roads. In 1883 there were 2 civil and 5 criminal courts (including head-quarters courts); police circles (thánús), 14; regular police, 270 men. Total revenue, £54,676. Nellore (Nellúru; Nelli-uru, the village of the nelli tree, Phyllanthus Emblica).--Chief town of Nellore District, Madras Presidency, situated in lat. 14° 26' 38" N., long. 80° 1' 27" E., on the right bank of the Penner, 107 miles north of Madras. Population (1881) 27,505, namely, 13,357 males and 14,148 females; number of houses, 5800. Of the population, 22,128 are Hindus, 4672 Muhammadans, 700 Christians, and 5 others.' Municipal income (1882–83), £3611, of which £ 2254 was derived from taxation; average incidence of taxation, is, 63 d. Nellore town, which is traditionally said to be situated in the famous wilderness Dandaka Aranyam, is of considerable antiquity. Its ancient name was Sinhapur ('lion city'); later it was called Durgametta, a name which survives in one of its suburbs. It was held by the akatagiri zamíndárs till the Musalmán period, and in 1750 formed a fauidári of Arcot. In 1752 the town was seized by a freebooter named Muhanımad Komal, who was captured and executed twelve months later. Najib-ullá, the governor, revolted in 1757, and the English forces under Forde assisted in an unsuccessful sicge of the town. The Maráthás and the French both visited Nellore in 1758. The latter were received as friends; but on the raising of the siege of Fort Saint George in the same year, Najib-ullá murdered all the French soldiers in the town save one, and gave in his submission to the English. In 1787, while a peasant was ploughing near the town, he struck upon the remains of a Hindu temple, beneath which was found a pot containing gold coins. About thirty of these were saved from the melting pot, and they proved to be Roman aurei of the 2nd century A.D.; chiefly bearing the names of Trajan, Hadrian, and Faustina. Some were beautifully fresh, but others were worn and perforated, as if they had been used as personal ornaments. When the anicut across the Penner was being constructed, the workmen engaged in excavating a bed of laterite found several coffins, apparently of burnt clay, embedded in quartz. Some of these coffins contained more than one body each ; and when at first seen, the bodies were in a perfect state of preservation, although they quickly crumbled to dust. There were also found with them spear-heads and other implements. The town of Nellore is tolerably clean and airy. The houses 121