A EUX THROUGH KATHIAWAR. 203 



October to March, when scarcely any rain falls, when 

 the sky is clear (except occasionally in the mornings, 

 when there are thick fogs), the air pure and bracing, 

 and the cold is sometimes great enough to cause the 

 formation of ice. In its great characteristics the 

 climate is not different from that of Western India 

 in general ; but except in the hot season, it has these 

 characteristics in a vastly superior style to that of 

 by far the greater part of the Bombay Presidency. 

 In a country so partially cultivated, fever and dysen- 

 tery of course abound, but they can be guarded 

 against. Xumerous herds of black buck and of 

 tiif'/Jiai the large Indian elk spot the plains of 

 Kathiawar, and are easily approached, though the 

 aversion of the people to their being killed renders 

 the pursuit of them often inexpedient ; but the same 

 objection does not apply to hunting the lions, leo- 

 pards, wolves, and deer with which some of the 

 jungles are full. 



Kathiawar may very justly be called the Scotland 

 of Giizerat ; and, in accordance with that comparison, 

 its hardy, muscular people contrast strikingly with 

 the fuller-bodied, more placid, more English-like in- 

 habitants of the adjoining mainland. The great social 

 peculiarity of the country is its division into an im- 

 mense number of small states, the chiefs of some of 

 which exercise the power of life and death, and most 

 of which are governed by their own chiefs, who 

 are semi-independent, although feudatories of Great 



