TRANSPORTATION DEVELOPMENT IN KERALA 35 confined chiefly to Malabar, consisted of the construction of a few land routes during 1776-1793 and canals during 1820-1860. The land routes were opened during the period of the Mysore Sultanate8 and the canals during the early decades of British rule, with a view to ensuring mobility of military personnel necessary to quell riots ^.nd uprisings of the local population against alien rule. Construction of roads suitable for wheeled traffic was the harbinger of the modern era of transport development everywhere in the world. In Kerala such land routes were practically non-existent till the latter half of the 19th century. The principal reasons for the absence of such roads possibly were the availability of cheap waterways adequate to meet the limited requirements of trade and commerce in the numerous self-sufficient and economically isolated petty principalities; the unfavourable geographic and climatic conditions which made road construction difficult and costly given the techniques at that time and the geographical isolation which insulated the region throughout the major part of its history from foreign aggression.8 Development of transport on a massive scale began in the region from the mid-19th century. This was not confined to any one mode of transport, even though the construction of railroads was first limited to Malabar and that of canals and roads, by and large, to Travancore and Cochin. Developments in Malabar The tardy development of transport in Malabar, is a reflection of the peculiar socio-political and economic conditions that prevailed in that region under British rule. It is well known that during the 19th century, the main object of British rule in Malabar was to keep the agricultural economy under duress—by suppressing the *outrageous' tenants and safeguarding the interests of the propertied classes—for ensuring a regular and growing flow of land revenue. Consequently the attention paid by the administrators towards transport development appears to have generally followed the sequence of agrarian uprisings in the region. However, the need to promote foreign trade also weighed to some extent with the British in the promotion of transportation facilities in the Malabar region, The history of continuous native uprisings in Malabar which spanned over a century from 1800 necessitated frequent movements of troops from one end of the district to the other. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, there existed in Malabar a few canals constructed for facilitating movement of Mysorean troops into the region.4 During the early decades of British rule, a number of canals were designed, with a view to facilitating the maintenance of law and order. However, since the law and order situation in the territory during the period from the fall ofPazhassy Raja to the first Moplah uprising (1805—1838) was quite under control, no serious effort seems to have been made by the