A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c7.36

c7.36

The lowland that interposes between the Eastern Ghats and the shore of the Bay of Bengal extends with little variation from the Mahanadi to Cape Comorin. The maritime strip varies at first from 50 to 100 miles in width, but becomes broader as the ghats recede from the coast about 16°N. Everywhere there is the same narrow strip of sandy foreshore leading to a wide vista of green rice-crops and palm growth, the same background of forest-clad hills now receding into misty distance, now breaking the dead monotony of the surf-beaten coast with bold, bleak headlands, with large lagoons here and there, not unlike the backwaters of the Malabar coast, with wide expanses of sandbanks and shallows opposite the deltaic mouths of rivers which render close approach to the ports impossible to ships of any size. Where no such silt formations exist, the open roadsteads usually afford fair and close anchorage as at Cuddalore and Cocanada and, until they were developed recently into artificial harbours, at Madras and Vizagapatam.