Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/767

Rh C U T G H 731 great violence from the north-east before it settles in the south-west. The prevailing wind is westerly, and it blows west by south and west by north ten months in the year. The easterly winds, which do not blow more than a month in the year, are always unhealthy and unpleasant, and bring with them, if they continue long, epidemics and locusts, dutch is considered unhealthy by the natives of other parts of the country ; and Dr Burnes, who was stationed there, and gives an account of its medical topography, mentions that he has known many persons from Bombay, especially servants, who were perfectly useless from con tinued sickness in dutch, but who recovered their health the moment they left it. He also adds, that he never was at any station where recoveries from fever were so tedious and incomplete. The hospital returns do not, however, he adds, show any extraordinary sickness, dholera has made no progress in dutch. The most common diseases among the natives are fever and rheumatism ; and fever is also the prevailing disease among Europeans, the first attacks of which are always the most dangerous. These, however, are not ordinarily severe, and easily yield to the remedy tff sulphate of quinine without any serious injury to the con stitution. There are some stations at dutch particularly noxious, such as Narrona, a village in a marsh 24 miles north-east of Bhuj, near the Runn, and Lakshpat Bandar, remarkable for the badness of its water. The principal towns are Bhuj, Anjar, Jharra, Kantkot, and KatAriA. The principal seaports are MandAvi and Mundra. The town best known to Europeans is Bhuj, which is situated inland, and is surrounded by an amphi theatre of hills, some of which approach within three or four miles of the city. The hill of Bhuj A, on which the fort is situated, and under the south-west angle of which is the cantonment of the dutch brigade, rises to the height of 500 feet in the middle of the plain, and is detached from other high ground. The residency is four miles distant in a westerly direction. There are many mountain streams, but no navigable rivers. They scarcely contain any water except in the rainy season, when they are very full and rapid, and discharge themselves into the Runn, all along the coast of which the wells and springs are more or less im pregnated with common salt, and other saline ingredients. Various causes have contributed to thin the population of this country. In 1812 it was ravaged by a famine and pestilence, which destroyed a great proportion of its inhabitants, according to some accounts, nearly one-half. This, joined to the tyranny and violence of the Government until the year 1819, and more lately to a succession of un favourable seasons, has forced many of the cultivators to remove to Sind and other countries. The inhabitants may be estimated at 500,000, of whom one-third are Mahometans and the remainder Hindus of various castes. The Jharija Rajputs forma particular class, being the aristocracy of the country ; and all are more or less connected with the family of the Rao, or prince. There are in dutch about 200 of these Jharija chiefs, who all claim their descent from Sacko Goraro, a prince who reigned in Sind about 1000 years ago. Erom him also the reigning sovereign is lineally descended, and he is the liege lord of whom all the chiefs or nobles hold their lands in feu, for services which they or their ancestors had performed, or in virtue of their relationship to the family. They are all termed the brotherhood of the Rao, and supposed to be his hereditary advisers, and their possessions are divided among their male children. To prevent the breaking down of their properties, the necessary consequence of this law of inheritance, there is no doubt that infanticide is common among them, and that it extends to the male as well as the female progeny. The JharijAs consider it unlawful to marry any female of their own tribe, being all descended from a common parent. They accordingly marry into the families of other Rdjpiits ; and to this unfortunate regulation may be chiefly ascribed the destruction of all the female children. The JharijAs have a tradition that when they entered dutch they wero Mahometans, but that they afterward adopted the customs and religion of the Hindus. It is certain, indeed, that they still retain many Mahometan customs. They take oaths equally on the Koran or on the ShastrAs ; they employ Mus sulman books; they eat from their hands ; the RAo, when he appears in public, alternately worships God in a Hindu pagoda and a Mahometan mosque ; and he fits out annually at MandAvi a ship for the conveyance of pilgrims to Mecca, who are maintained during the voyage chiefly by the liberality of the prince. The Mahometans in dutch are of the same degenerate caste with those usually found in the western parts of India. The MiAnAs forms a par ticular class, who claim the same descent as the JharijAs, and boast of their constancy to the Mahometan creed, while the latter apostatized ; but they have now entirely degener ated, and are little better than banditti, always ready to commit outrages, and to sally out in disorderly bands to plunder the defenceless country. Such has been the weakness and tyranny of the rulers of dutch, that they have frequently had recourse to these wretched auxiliaries in order to aid them in their inordinate exactions, while at other times they recruited the army from tho same race. They were nearly extirpated under the rigor ous rule of Fathi Muhammad, but of late years they have returned in considerable numbers to their villages among the hills. In the seasons of scarcity of 1823 and 1824, many of them emigrated to Sind, where, joining with other adventurers, they formed disorderly bands, who made forays into dutch, several villages of which they plundered and burned. The natives are in general of a stronger and stouter make, and even handsomer, than those of Western India ; and the women of the higher classes are also handsome. The peasants are described as intelligent, and the artizans are justly celebrated for their ingenuity and mechanical skill. The palace at MandAvi, and a tomb of one of their princes at Bhuj, are fair specimens of their architectural skill. In the manufacture of gold and silver ornaments they display great taste and nicety. The natives of this country are in general peace able and obedient subjects, for robberies and murders are seldom committed except by the MiAnAs. The quantity of opium which they use is enormous; its effects, accord ing to Dr Burnes, are less deleterious to their constitution than might be supposed. History. The country of Cutch was invaded about the 9th century by a body of Mahometans of the Summa tribe, who under the guidance of five brothers emigrated from Sind, and who gradu ally subdued or expelled the original inhabitants, consisting of three distinct races. The descendants of these five leaders assumed the name of Jharija, from a chief named Jbarra, who set an example of female infanticide by putting to deatli his seven daughters in one day. Cutch continued tranquil under their sway for many years, until some family quarrel arose, in which the chief of an elder branch of the tribe was murdered by a rival brother. His son fled to Ahmadabad to seek the assistance of the viceroy, who was married to his sister, and who reinstated him in the sovereignty of Cutch, and Murvi in Kathidwar, in the title of Kao, or Rawul, in the year 1519. . The succession continued in the same line from the time of this prince until 1666, when a younger brother, Prapji, murdered his elder brother and usurped the sovereignty. This line of princes continued till 1760 without any remarkable event, when, in the rei^n of Eao Gor, the country was invaded four times by the binds who wasted it with fire and sword. The reign of this prince, as well as that of his sou Rao Uahiden, by whom he was succeeded in 1778, was marked by cruelty and blood. The latter prince was dethroned, and, being in a state of mental derangement, was during his life time confined by Fathi Muhammad, a native of Sind, who continual, with a short interval (in which the party of the legal heir, Bhai.ji Bawa, gained the ascendency), to rule the country until lus in 1813. It was in the reign of Fathi Muhammad that a communi-