THE INDIAN PENINSULA 161

the trade of the Godavari is comparatively insignificant.
Hides and gingelli nuts are the chief products of the lower
basin, where a scattered population, which lives largely on
the natural produce of the forest, grows hardly enough
rice for home consumption, The wealth of the Godavari
commences with the delta, through which a highlydeveloped
 system of irrigation has been matured, and has
proved to be one of the most successful of all Indian irrigation
 projects. Here, once more, the natural lines of
communication through the country are the waterways,
and European officials travel chiefly in boats. Rice and
tobacco are very largely cultivated, and the latter has
achieved a reputation equal to that of the more southern
Trichinopoli growth. Much of it is cultivated on the
islands (or lunkas) of the river, and “lunka” tobacco has
long been recognised in the European market as one of
the best of Indian tobaccos.
The Kistna rises in the eastern declivities of the
Western Ghats, and runs about 650 miles to the sea,
carrying with it the waters of the Bhima from the north
and the Tongabudra from the south-west, Both are important
 streams. The surface of the Kistna River is too
low for irrigation purposes; the river carries but a small
volume of water, and is unnavigable. Between its debouchment
 from the wild hill country which separates its
lower course from that of the Godavari, and the Godavari
delta, are districts which are annually inundated by a
fresh-water lake called the Kolari, which occupies a deep
depression about the centre of this low-lying tract. In
the dry weather this lake is about 24 miles long by
12 in breadth; but when the annual floods from July
to September raise the level of the two rivers, they
overflow from both directions into the lake, which then
becomes 40 to 50 miles long, and spills over the adjacent
country. Its waters are used for irrigation during the
dry season, embankments being formed to prevent the
flood tides from the sea from reaching it. A small but
navigable river connects it with the sea and carries off the
surplus water.