Probably the following quotation from Dampier refers to Orissa, as does that from Hedges:
"One of the English ships was called the Nellegree, the name taken from the Nellegree Hills in Bengal, as I have heard."—Dampier, ii. 145.
1683.—"In ye morning early I went up the Nilligree Hill, where I had a view of a most pleasant fruitfull valley."—Hedges, Diary, March 2; [Hak. Soc. i. 67].
The following also refers to the Orissa Hills:
1752.—"Weavers of Balasore complain of the great scarcity of rice and provisions of all kinds occasioned by the devastations of the Mahrattas, who, 600 in number, after plundering Balasore, had gone to the Nelligree Hills."—In Long, 42.
a. The name of a stemless palm (Nipa fruticans, Thunb.), which abounds in estuaries from the Ganges delta eastwards, through Tenasserim and the Malay countries, to N. Australia, and the leaves of which afford the chief material used for thatch in the Archipelago. "In the Philippines," says Crawfurd, "but not that I am aware of anywhere else, the sap of the Nipa ... is used as a beverage, and for the manufacture of vinegar, and the distillation of spirits. On this account it yields a considerable part of the revenue of the Spanish Government" (Desc. Dict. p. 301). But this fact is almost enough to show that the word is the same which is used in sense b; and the identity is placed beyond question by the quotations from Teixeira and Mason.
b. Arrack made from the sap of a palm tree, a manufacture by no means confined to the Philippines. The Portuguese, appropriating the word Nipa to this spirit, called the tree itself nipeira.
a.—
1611.—"Other wine is of another kind of palm which is called Nipa (growing in watery places), and this is also extracted by distillation. It is very mild and sweet, and clear as pure water; and they say it is very wholesome. It is made in great quantities, with which ships are laden in Pegu and Tanasarim, Malaca, and the Philippines or Manila; but that of Tanasarim exceeds all in goodness."—Teixeira, Relaciones, i. 17.