Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/446

430 430 H Y D H Y D Of the total area of the district about one-half is uncultivable ; 2,300,000 acres are cultivable though not cultivated, and 566,800 are under irrigation. Agriculture is entirely dependent upon arti ficial irrigation, and is looked upon as a lottery, in which the culti vator stakes a certain amount of labour and seed, and takes his chance of getting a return. If the water rises either too high or not high enough, he loses his crop. There are 317 canals, fifty of which are main channels, and tap the Indus direct ; the remainder are connecting branches. The principal crops are wheat, barley, oil-seeds, pulses, vegetables, jodr, bdjra, til, rice, cotton, sugar-cane, cliana, hemp, tobacco, water-melons, and indigo. The manufactures of the district maintain the excellence for which they have been famous from early times, namely, that for lacquered work, gold and silver embroidery, striped and brilliant cloths known as susis and Thesis, and glazed pottery. The manufacture of car- iiets, silk thread, and gold and silver ornaments is carried on to a arge extent; salt also is produced in such quantities as to allow of a considerable exportation. The total number of fairs is 33, and the average attendance about 5000. The roads of the district extend to 1925 miles in length, of which 263 are metalled, bridged, and marked with milestones. The ferries number 68 ; the one at Gidu- Bandar (3^ miles from Hyderabad) is a steam ferry connecting Hyderabad with Kotri, on Si ml Railway. There are 10 travellers bungalows, 16 dharmsdlds, 4 dispensaries, a civil and police hospital, a convict hospital, and a charitable dispensary. Considerable variations of climate are found within the district. In the north, the hot season of April and May is followed by two months of floods, the rest of the year being cold and dry. In the central divisions, the cold season succeeds the hot without any in tervening inundations to graduate the transition ; and the change occurs sometimes with such suddenness that, to quote a local say ing, &quot; sunstroke and frost-bite are possible in one and the same day.&quot; In the south the temperature is more equable throughout the year, 60 F. and 100 F. representing the extremes. The rain fall is very moderate ; and the district is healthy as compared with other parts of India. The population is divided as follows : Mahometans, 560,349 ; Hindus, 118,652 ; other creeds and tribes, 44,882 ; total, 723,883. Of the Mahometans 373,705, or more than three-fifths, are Sinds. More important, however, as regards social status and personal character, are the Pathans, found chiefly about Hyderabad and Upper Siiui ; they number only 15,815 persons. As regards occu pation, the Hindus of the district may be called the shopkeeping class, the Mahometans the artisan and agricultural. The chief revenue and magisterial authority is vested in a col lector and magistrate. He is assisted by the four deputy collectors of Hala, Tando Muhammad Khan, Naushahro, and Hyderabad taluks, of which the district is composed. The police force is under the charge of a European district superintendent, and com prises a total of 876 men, with 4 inspectors and 19 chief constables. The average land revenue for 6 years (1868-74) was 111,655; drug revenue (1873-74), 5304 ; receipts from the farming of liquor- shops (1873-74), 9640 ; imperial revenue (1874), 144,944 ; local revenue (1874), 12,434; forests yield an annual revenue of 11,216. The Government boys schools numbered 55 in 1874, with 3227 pupils ; the girls schools 12, with 368 pupils. These figures in clude the returns for the high, normal, engineering, and Anglo- vernacular schools in Hyderabad city. The local history of Hyderabad district is so mixed up with that of the province that little could be said of it separately which will not more properly find a place under the history of Bind. The battles of Miani (Meeanee) and Dabo, which decided the fate of Sind in favour of the British, were fought within its limits. HYDERABAD, the chief town of the above district, in 25 23 5&quot; N. lat. and 68 24 51&quot; E. long., had in 1872 a population of 35,272, of whom 13,065 were Mahometans, 16,889 Hindus, 367 Christians, and 4951 &quot;others.&quot; The municipal area is about 15 square miles. Upon the site of the present fort is supposed to have stood the ancient town of Neratikot, which in the 8th century submitted to Muhammad Kasim Sakifi. Its situation near the apex of the delta of the Indus had commended itself to in vaders and conquerors of still earlier date. It is identified with Patala, a town which has been connected with a prehistoric Scythian migration into India (c. 625 B.C. 1). Alexander the Great founded or refounded a city called Patala in or near the same place, 325 B.C., and left in it a military settlement. The best archaeological authorities regard the modern Hyderabad as the representative of this Patala of the Greeks. In 1768 the present city was founded by Gliulam Shah Kalhora; and it remained the chief town of the province until 1843, when, after the battle of Meeanee, it was surrendered to the British, and the capital transferred to Kurrachee (Karachi). The city is built on the most northerly hills of the Ganga range, a site of great natural strength. In the fort, which covers an area of 36 acres, are the arsenal of the province, trans ferred hither from Kurrachee in 1861, and the residences of the ex mirs of Siud. Hyderabad is the centre of all the provincial communications road, telegraphic, postal. From the earliest times its manufactures ornamented silks, silver and gold work, and lacquered ware have been the chief of the province, and in recent times have gained prizes at the industrial exhibitions of Europe. The chief public institutions and buildings are the jail, Govern ment schools, post-office, municipal markets, court houses, civil and police hospital, charitable dispensary, library, travellers bungalow, and lunatic asylum. The barracks occupied by artillery and infantry, European and native are built in twelve blocks, with hospitals, bazaar, &amp;lt;tc., to the north-west of the city. The only noteworthy antiquities are the tombs of the Kabhora and Talpur mirs. HYDRA (the name is also found as Sidra, Nidra, Idero, &c,, and the ancient form was Hydrea), an island of Greece, lying about 4 miles off the south-east coast of Argolis in the Peloponnesus, arid forming along with the neighbouring island of Dhoko the Bay of Hydra. The length of the main axis of the island, which runs from south west to north-east, is about 11 miles, and the area is about 21 square miles ; but it is little better than a rocky and tree less ridge with hardly a patch or two of arable soil. There was little exaggeration in the reply made by Antonios Kriezes to the queen of Greece : &quot; The island produces prickly pears in abundance, splendid sea captains, and excellent prime ministers.&quot; The highest point, Mount Ere, so called (according to Miaoules) from the Albanian word for wind, has an elevation of 1958 feet. The next in importance is known as the Prophet Elias, from the large convent of that name on its summit. It was there that the patriot Theodorus Colocotronis was imprisoned, and a large pine tree is still called after him. The fact that in former times the island was richly clad with woods is in dicated by the name still employed by the Turks, Tchamliza, the place of pines ; but it is only in some favoured spots that a few trees are now to be found. Tradition also has it that it was once a well-watered island (hence the designation Hydrea), but the inhabitants are now wholly dependent on the rain supply, and they have sometimes had to bring water from the mainland. This lack of fountains is probably to be ascribed in part to the effect of earthquakes, which are not infrequent ; that of 1769 continued for six whole days. Hydra, the chief town, is built near the middle of the northern coast, on a very irregular site, consisting of three hills and the intervening ravines. From the sea its white and handsome houses present a picturesque and noble appearance, and its streets though narrow are clean and attractive. Besides the principal harbour, round which the town is built, there are three other ports on the north coast Mandraki, Molo, Panagia, but none of them is sufficiently sheltered. Almost all the population of the island is collected in the chief town, which is the seat of a bishop, and has a local court, numerous churches, and a high school. Cotton and silk weaving, tanning, and ship building are carried on, and there is a fairly active trade. The population in 1877 was 6811. Hydra was of no importance in ancient times. The only fact in its history is that the people of Hermione (a city on the neighbouring mainland now known by the common name of Kastri] surrendered it to Samian refugees, arid that from these the people of Trcezen received it in trust. It appears to be completely ignored by the Byzantine chroniclers. In 1580 it was chosen as a refuge by a body of Albanians from Kok^cinyas in Trcezenia ; and other emigrants followed in 1590, 1628, 1635, 1640, &c. At the close of the 17th