As T. V. Mahalingam remarked "Indian history owes a deep debt of gratitude to the indomitable spirit of pioneers who pursued their goal regardless of cost and conveyance. Col. Colin Mackenzie was one of those poincers, who will ever be remembered for the collection of antiquities particularly in the form of manuscripts which is now the most priceless collection of local historical documents relating to South India." He was the second son of Murdoch Mackenzie, who owned a fleet of ships to trade with Norway, France and Holland. Colin had one elder brother by name Alexander and younger one, Kenneth and a sister Mary. He was born in 1753 in Stornoway. Later he did research under Lord Napier, who prepared the biography of John Napier, the inventor of the English logarithms. When he was working with Lord Napier he took to oriental research seriously.
Mackenzie came to Madras, on 2nd September, 1783, when Warren Hastings was the Governor General of India and in the same year he joined the Military service as Ensign of Engineers. In 1789, he was promoted as Lieutenant, in 1793 as Captain, in 1806 as Major, in 1809 as Lieutenant Colonel and in 1819 as Colonel.
In 1790 Mackenzie was entrusted to make a complete survey of Guntur sircar till June, 1793. He surveyed Cuddapah, Kurnool and the wild mountains of Nallamala and Zeramulla as far as Krishna which were the new additions to Hyderabad State from Mysore, after the battle of Mysore. From 1794 he surveyed the frontier regions of Nizam's territories between the Pennar and Krishna. In 1796 he submitted a detailed map of Nizam's dominions. Mackenzie had also taken great interest in minerals and spent a considerable time in that part of the country where diamond mines are situated.
One of his trusted assistants was a Brahmin youth by name Kavali Venkata Boriah, who was introduced to Mackenzie by his brother Rama-swamy, who was already under the service of Mackenzie as translator. Boriah was born in 1776 at Eluru in a respectable family of Brahmins. He studied Sanskrit poetry at the age of ten and attended a school at Masulipatnam at fourteen. He used to read Telugu poetry and grammar. During his leisure hours, he also studied Persian and Hindustani in order to qualify himself to enter the service of the East India Company. He entered Mackenzie's service as a writer at the age of eighteen. He acquired a good knowledge of Mathematics, Geometry, Astronomy, Geography and other sciences under the guidance of Mackenzie. He was able to draw maps very neatly. He had to travel dreary woods and lofty mountains for collection of information.
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