REVENUE SURVEYS. 125 



A picturesque description of the Konkan, from the pen of Colonel 

 J. Macdonald, finds place in the Surveyor- General's Report for 

 1879-80.* Colonel Macdonald remarks on the few remains of fine 

 buildings throughout the Konkan, showing the traces of Muhammadan 

 occupation, and he observes that, considering the importance they 

 attached to the trade and intercourse with Egypt, Persia, and Arabia, 

 and that they were supreme in power from the fourteenth to the close 

 of the sixteenth century, it is strauge there are not more traces of a 

 governing race which built like giants and finished like jewellers. 

 Of the Marathas, who date from the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, the great hill forts are the most characteristic structures. 

 All these are constructed on the same principle, the top of the fortified 

 hill being surrounded by a bastioned wall, and any necessary outwork 

 being connected by an excavated passage with the main work. Some 

 of these forts show stupendous labour in rock-cutting. The eastern 

 districts are terribly denuded of forest trees. Every effort is made 

 to promote jungle growth, but Colonel Macdonald considers that 

 centuries must elapse ere the injury to agriculture caused by the 

 folly and greed of one unthinking generation can be quite forgiven 

 by nature, and that the rainfall in the upper basin of the Godavari 

 and Kistna rivers will be most precarious for many years to come. 



The progress was slow in the following year owing to the high 

 and difficult hills covered with forest or marshy flat country cut up 

 by tidal creeks, about which the work lay. The suburbs of Bombay 

 were very intricate, and the hill sanitarium of Matheran and Bombay 

 harbour also proved difficult pieces of work. The fort and city 

 were not surveyed, but mapped from a photographic reduction of 

 Colonel Laughton's survey in 1874. Major Lees Smith, who had 

 taken over charge from Colonel Macdonald, unfortunately succumbed 

 to fever in 1882. He was an officer possessed of considerable mathe- 

 matical talent, and his loss was much regretted. During 1882 and 

 1883 the scale of survey in the Thana collectorate was raised from 

 two to four inches to meet the requirements of the Forest Department, 

 and the country alternated between difficult mountainous jungle- 

 covered districts and flat and marshy tracts along the seacoast, both 

 of which proved very unhealthy to the party. The portions of the 

 Konkan allotted to the party were completed in 1885, and a com- 

 mencement was made of the topographical survey of the Southern 

 Maratha country, the object being to undertake a topographical 

 2-inch survey of Bombay territory south of the parallel of 16° N. 



* See Appendix, p. 10. 



