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VIZAGAPATAM. the increase in population has led to the cultivation of others of Salt. the saline areas. There are in the district fifteen fish-curing yards, controlled by Government, in which salt is supplied duty free to be utilized in curing fish. The quantity of fish cured annually in these is about 57,000 Indian maunds. It is consumed throughout the district. The abkári revenue consists of that derived from arrack, foreign liquor, toddy and hemp-drugs. Statistics regarding each of these items, and also concerning opium, will be found in the separate Appendix. For abkári purposes, the district was long treated as consisting of three different zones in which three different systems of administration were required; namely, the Agency, the interior taluks and the littoral tracts; and even at present the system of administration in the Agency differs widely from that in the plains. In the former (except in a few villages along the foot of the hills chiefly in Golgonda taluk) the Abkári Act I of 1886 is not in force, the officers of the Abkári department have no jurisdiction, and matters are directly administered by the Agent and his subordinates.

In this tract, unlike the rest of the district, there are no restrictions whatever upon the manufacture and consumption of toddy.

Except in Malkanagiri, where palmyra Palms are plentiful, toddy is obtained there from the sago-palm (Caryota urens), date and cocoa palms being rare and never tapped. A rough ladder, consisting of a stem of bamboo with the branches on either side of it cut short so as to make steps, is lashed to the tree and left there permanently, and the owner climbs up whenever he or his require a drink. The people do not know how to climb palms in the method followed by the Shánáns of the southern districts. The tree is tapped in the same way as a palmyra, the end of the flower spathe being cut off and a pot suspended below to catch the sap as it exudes.

Though the manufacture of toddy has always been unrestricted in the Agency, a fair amount of revenue has always been extracted from the consumption of spirit there, but methods of administration have always differed widely from those followed in the plains.

The early system in Jeypore was particularly simple: the estate was rented as a farm, the Rája bought it, and he then 186