If the Oude Residency could, with honour, be withdrawn, or if we believed that there was a possibility of the Government of the King holding together for a month, when abandoned by the British Government, we should at once advocate giving his Majesty the opportunity of trying to stand on his own legs; but knowing the thing to be impossible, we have offered the only practicable remedy for the ills that afflict the country, and shall be delighted to see it, or some such scheme, speedily carried out. This scheme is given in the rough. We have not even attempted to round it off; the principle is all we advocate. The details may be indefinitely improved, but whatever outcry or opposition our sentiments may elicit, we sit down satisfied with the reflection that we have suggested no breach of faith, but have promulgated a plan which the most conscientious servant of the State might be proud to work out.

MAHRATTA HISTORY AND EMPIRE.

[WRITTEN IN 1845.]

MAHARASHTRA, or the country of the Mahrattas, is, according to Hindoo geographers, one of the five principal divisions of the Deccan,* or, country south of the Narbadda and Mahanaddi rivers. The limits of Maharashtra are variously given: Mahommedans seldom troubled themselves about geographical questions, and it was long after they had overrun the different provinces of India, before they inquired respecting their original divisions. Mahrattas, indeed, are seldom mentioned by Mahommedan writers until the deeds of Shahjee, and his son Sivajee, brought their countrymen prominently to notice. When the historian Ferishtah alludes to the Mahrattas he calls them "the Hindoos," "the Bergis," meaning, by the first appellation, the population generally, in contradistinction to their Moslem conquerors; by the second, designating them marauders.+

*The Deccan of the Hindus comprised the whole peninsula south of the Narbadda and Mahanaddi, but Europeans have adopted the Mahommedan definition, and limit it to Telingana, Gondwana, and that portion of Maharashtra above the Western Ghats, being generally the country between the Narbadda and Kistna rivers.-H. M. L.

Mr. Elphinstone states, at page 457, vol. ii. of his History of India, "The word Mahrattas first occurs in

Ferishta, in the transactions of the year A.D. 1485, and is not then applied in a general sense." This is an error. It strikes us we have repeatedly seen them mentioned at earlier dates. By a hasty reference we have now found three such references: A.D. 1342, Ferishtah, as translated by Dow, says, "He at the same time conferred the Government of Doulutabad and of the country of the Mahrattors upon Cuttulech, his preceptor."-Page 289, vol. i. Again, at

Two points of the Mahratta history have, however, been recovered from the mazes of antiquity. Ptolemy tells us that, in the second century, there was a large city called Tagara, one of the principal marts of the Deccan, or country of the south; well known to the Greeks, and frequented by Egyptian merchants, 250 years before Christ. Its exact position has been the subject of controversy. Mr. Elphinstone considers that the site has yet to be ascertained, while Grant Duff places it on the Godavery, about fifty miles below Pyetan, supposed to have been the Paithana of Ptolemy. Learned natives recognise the name of Tagara, and Grant Duff alludes to ancient deeds of grants of land engraved on copper plates, styling its monarch "the Chief of the Chiefs of Tagara." The second fact is, that a conquering sovereign, by the name Salivahan, whose era begins A.D. 77, and is the one now ordinarily used in the Deccan, ruled in the Mahratta country. He is said to have subdued the famous Vikramaditya, king of Malva; but this could not have been the case, as there are 135 years between their eras. The capital of Salivahan is recorded to have been at Pyetan on the Godavery.

The foregoing seem to be the only facts that can be gleaned from the mass of legendary accounts regarding Maharashtra, and its many petty independent States, antecedent to the inroad of the Mahommedans under Alla-ud-deen, in the year of our Lord, 1294. At this time, Jadow Ram-deo Rao was king, rajah, or mayhap, only "chief of the chiefs." He was at least sovereign of an extensive country, though there were at the time several

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two places, in page 320 of the same volume, Sirvadon, Chief of the Mahrattors," is mentioned. In Scott's translation of Ferishtah's History of the Deccan, among other inmates

of "Feroze Shaw's" zenana, in A.D. 1398, are noted "Rajpootnees, Bengalees, Guzratees, Telinganees, Maharattins."-H. M. L.

other chiefs in Maharashtra independent of his authority. Jadow Ram-deo Rao ruled at Deogurh, the modern Doulutabad. His conquerors, astonished at his wealth and power, styled him King of the Deccan. The plunder of his capital supplied Alla-ud-deen with the wealth which enabled him to usurp the throne of Delhi.

To make our subsequent historical details intelligible, it will be requisite briefly to describe the position and features of the Mahratta country. Mr. Elphinstone's History of India gives the following boundaries of Maharashtra. On the north, the Sautpoora range of hills, from Naundode, near Baroach, on the western coast, to the source of the Wurda river. On the east, the Wurda river, which, taking a south-easterly course, joins the Wyne Gunga, south-west of Chanda. On the south, the boundary is a waving line, running past Beder and Kolapoor to Goa; while the western limit is the line of coast from Goa to Damaun, and thence inland to Naundode.

The trapezium enclosed within this outline covers about one hundred thousand square miles, and is estimated to contain between six and seven millions of inhabitants. Some portions of the country are thickly inhabited; but large tracts are desolate, or very thinly peopled, giving as the average of the whole, scarcely above sixty to the square mile.* The most marked feature of the country, whose boundaries we have defined, is the Syhadree range of mountains, commonly

* Mr. Tone, who was an officer in the service of the Peishwa, says, "I believe it may be safely asserted that through the whole country (Bengal and Behar excepted) one acre in fifty is not cultivated." He wrote in 1818, and doubtless alluded to the country around Poona, where he had served; but even there, and distracted as the Peishwa's territory

had been, we consider his statement to be above the mark. The Satara and Poona lands now bear a far different aspect; indeed, wherever British influence extends, and common care and intelligence is exerted, the change is soon extraordinary. We have, in more than one quarter, seen cultivation doubled, nay trebled, in a single year.-H. M. L.

GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS.

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called the Ghats. They run along the western coast of India, at an average distance of thirty-seven miles from the sea their summits are from three to five thousand feet in height, rising abruptly from the west, and supporting a table-land, which averages three thousand feet above the sea and slopes gradually towards the east. This range divides Maharashtra into three great tracts, the Concan, the Concan-Ghat-Mahta, and the Desh (Des), or country to the eastward of the high lands. The Concan is that portion of the country which lies between the Syhadree mountains and the sea, and extends in a long narrow strip from the river Taptee, at Surat, to the Portuguese town of Goa. This division varies in breadth from twenty-five to fifty miles, and contains about twenty thousand square miles, or one-fifth of all Maharashtra. The Concan is a very rugged country, 'interspersed with huge mountains and thick jungles; intersected by rivers and numberless rivulets." Some portions, however, especially near the coast, are remarkably fertile. Towards the Ghats the country is wild and picturesque in the extreme, the jungle verdure is there perpetual, and vegetation most luxuriant.

The table land above the passes is called the ConcanGhat-Mahta, or Concan above the Ghats. The highest part of the Syhadree range is that which immediately faces the Concan. The breadth of this chain of mountains is about twenty or twenty-five miles, including the space from the summit of the ridge facing the Concan to the termination of the branches on the east side; the whole intervening space being designated Concan-GhatMahta.* The area will thus be equal to rather more

The general elevation of the Bombay sanatarium in that portion of the Syhadree range called the Muhabaleshwur hills is 4500 feet above the sea: the highest summit

is 4700; the height above the subjacent country in the Concan is 4000 feet, and above the general level of the Deccan, at its eastern base, 2300 feet. The average breadth of the