high, is a shrine formed of three huge boulders, two of which make a kind of roof, and fitted with a doorway and one side-wall of cut stone. The water of the fall pours continually between the boulders. A rough lingam and other holy emblems have been carved out of the rock.
Rampa was once the chief place in the small mutta of the same name and the residence of its muttadar. This man was chieftain over the whole of the old Rampa country and controlled the other muttadars there, and the rebellion in this which occurred in 1879 and is referred to below was in consequence called 'the Rampa rebellion.'1[1]
In the earliest records which mention him, the zamindar, mansabdar, or rája of Rampa is described as an independent ruler. Mr. Grant, in his Political Survey of the Northern Circars already several times referred to, calls him as independent as the rája of Bastar ; and the Committee of Circuit, writing in 1787, said that, though the zamindari of Rampa belonged to the Circar of Rajahmundry, yet neither the Company nor the Nizam's government received any tribute from it. 'The country,' said this body, 'is represented to be extremely mountainous and full of jungle, the natives rude and uncultivated, frequently making incursions on the adjacent countries, plundering the villages during the harvest, and driving off the cattle.'
At the time of the permanent settlement of 1802-03 the Rampa country was as entirely disregarded as if it had not existed, and no settlement of any part of it was made. During the disorders which arose in this district early in the nineteenth century, the mansabdar, Rámbhúpati Dévu, descended with an armed force from the hills and took forcible possession of some villages in the plains. He was driven out of these and submitted, offering to acknowledge ' for ever the sovereignty of the Company.'
Then (1813) for the first time a settlement was made with him. The villages he had taken were restored to him as mokhásas and, along with his ancestral possessions in the hills, were confirmed to him free of peshkash on condition that he maintained order in them and prevented incursions into the low country.2[2] He appears to have leased his villages to certain subordinate hill chiefs or muttadars, whom he
- ↑ 1 The following give accounts of the early history of Rampa, the causes of the rebellion and its course: G.Os., Judl., Nos. 1036, dated 5th May 1879; 755, dated 3rd April 1879; and 109, dated l6th January 1880. Also the report of Mr. D.F. Carmichael, when Special Commissioner, dated November 1st, 1881; and the Presidency Administration Reports for 1879-80 and 1880-81.
- ↑ 2 G.O. No. 1036, Judicial, dated 5th May 1879, appendix, p. 11.
