: 
218 SEVENTH REPORT—183/. ; 
under British protection. In adverting to the whole of these 
territories, although I shall name them separately in describing 
their extent, physical circumstances, and civil divisions, it will 
only be to notice where they differ from each other. 
The whole of the above territories, containing 3,285,985 
inhabitants, spread over 48,987 square miles, and averaging 
67 inhabitants to the square mile, lie upon that elevated 
plateau, which has an abrupt termination on the western side 
of India, in what are usually denominated the Ghats, but 
which plateau gradually declines, occasionally by a succession 
of low steps, as is seen by the courses of rivers to the Coro- 
mandel coast, excepting in Khandesh (Khind meaning a gap or 
trench, and Desh a country,) where the river Tapty disem- 
bogues to the westward, from the peculiar configuration of the 
narrow valley in which this collectorate lies, Some of the 
platforms on the summit of the Ghats have an elevation of 
5000 feet above the sea, but the general level of the main 
plateau of Dukhun is about 2000 feet high near the Ghats, 
and scarcely exceeds 1000 feet in the eastern limits of the col- 
lectorates. ‘The whole territory is mountainous near to the 
Ghats, and has numerous valleys, some of them narrow and 
tortuous, others broad, open, and flat. At from thirty to fifty 
miles eastward from the Ghats, most of the mountain spurs — 
which produce the valleys terminate, and the country becomes — 
open and tolerably level for considerable distances, with an 
occasional step down to the eastward; the country, in fact, — 
being made up of beds of trap, the beds extending the 
further to the eastward the lower they are in the series. — 
There is much forest and underwood and jungle along the — 
line of the Ghats; but to the eastward the country is open, 
and there is a want of wood; parts of Khandesh and Dhar- — 
war are exceptions to this description. The western tracts 
along the Ghats are called the Mawuls, in contradistinction — 
to the open country, which is called the Desh or Des. 4 
It may be as well to state here that all lands in Dukhun~ 
are classed within some village boundary or other, and this 
boundary is maintained with such jealousy and tenacity by 
the inhabitants, as to lead to frequent feuds and bloodshed on ~ 
the slightest invasion of village rights. The village consti-_ 
tution and the occupancy of lands will be mentioned under 
land-tenures. : 
Rivers.—The rivers of Dukhun, which in the monsoon flow 
with a magnificent volume of water, in the hot season present a 
broad gravelly bed, with only a thread-like stream in many of — 
them, but from natural barriers of rock in the bed of the 
Se En ARN ean ne Dir R NET 1A See A PW Petty 
