A RUN THKOUGII KATHIAAVAi;. 205 



of India, from Tartary, and perhaps from Europe ; 

 and it has a share of the wilder jungle and nomadic 

 tribes of India, such as the Bhi'ls and Jats. Colonel 

 Tod has even gone so far as to say that, " for diversity 

 of races, exotic and indigenous, there is no region 

 iu India to be compared with Saurashtra." It 

 swarms, moreover, with many pilgrims, besides those 

 of the Jain religion, who repair to the shrines of 

 Gi'rnar, Palitana, and Tulshishama. Kathiawar has 

 a most interesting ancient history in connection with 

 the Yadevas, the great Buddhist emperor Ashoka, 

 the Sinha or Lion-kings, and Mahmud of Ghazni ; 

 but great conquerors have not much disturbed the 

 relationships of its landed proprietors ; and it was 

 only with the advent of the paramount power of 

 Great Britain that their incessant feiids had to be 

 exchanged for lawsuits. It has only to be added 

 that bhaincnttia, or going into a state of outlawry 

 or, in fact, becoming robbers, descending for their 

 prey from the fastnesses of the mountains is an 

 ancient Kathiawar resource for the oppressed, and 

 still lingers in the peninsula. 



The above remarks may serve to give a rough 

 general idea of the country on which we are entering 

 at VairawaL I fancy steamers sometimes touch at 

 that port all the year round without landing a single 

 European ; but it so happened that on this occasion 

 there landed, besides myself, a civil engineer and his 

 assistants going to Jiinaghar, in connection with a 



