The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.118

v2.c17.s1.118

**Puri—its situation.** The thrice holy city¹ of the Lord of the world is situated on the seashore, about fifty miles to the south of the town of Cuttack. Latitude 19⁰ 47 m. 55 s. N., Longitude 85º 49 m. 5 s. E. It can lay no claim to salubrity, for it is located on a low surf-beaten beach, the perennial home of disease. Its fertility is represented by its arid sandy soil. It has no river of any size passing by it which could keep up water communication with the interior; and even drinking water of good quality is in it far from being plentiful. It has no pretension to the position of a port, for the surf-washed shelving shore and open roadstead before it will not permit even sea-going country crafts to approach within half a mile of the land. And besides the blue sea there is nothing to give it a picturesque appearance. The sandy shore of which it forms a part, stretches from the Chilkā Lake in the south to the mouth of the Prācī river on the north, a distance of over 42 miles, with a breadth varying from a thousand to six thousand yards. The level throughout this length is low, but broken by a number of ridges some of which enclose lagoons of salt water. One of them about five by three miles near Puri, forms a large lake called Sara, and receives the drainage of the Bhārgavī River. Why so inhospitable and ungainly a site was ever selected for a large town it is difficult to conceive.