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 BIMLIPATAM TALUK.

BIMLiPATAM taluk lies on the coast next north of Vizagapatam. In appearance it resembles the rest of the low country of the district, the soil being red, palmyras the commonest trees, and low hills frequent. The chief places of interest in it are the following: —

Bimlipatam, the head- quarters of the deputy tahsildar and of an ámin of the Vizianagram zamindari, is a municipality of 10,212 inhabitants and the busiest sea-port in the district. The town is most picturesquely situated at the mouth of the Chitti- valasa river, close under the big laterite-topped Narasimha hill, which is formed of deep-red soil scored with brown and purple streaks of rock and is well known to mariners from the prominent Narasimha temple half way up it.

Bimlipatam first came into notice as a settlement of the Dutch, who built a fort and factory here in the seventeenth century. The early records of the English factory at Vizagapatam are full of references to 'our neighbours the Dutch.'

The place played no prominent part in history. According to paragraphs 12 and 13 of Hodgson's Short description of the Dutch Settlements in the Madras records, 1 it was 'represented to beheld under Fermans granted by the Nizam and confirmed by the Mogul or Emperor of Delhi, bearing various dates from A.D. 1628 to A.D. 1713, and by a Cowle granted by Hajee Housson in A.D. 1734 and A.D. 1752 by Jaffur Ally Khan. The two last men- tioned persons were Naibs or deputies of the Nizam in the Circars. The Dutch are stated to have first occupied these factories about the year A.D. 1628.' In 1754, the factory was burnt by the Maráthas under Ragoji Bhonsla (see p. 31) and robbed of several chests of treasure. In the same year, say other old records, the then zamindar of Vizianagram granted pattas to the Dutch renewing permission formerly given to build a fort, possess a washing-green for bleaching cloth and establish a mint. Hodgson's report says that he is satisfied with the evidence