186 



On the Stalistks of Duhlran. 



[Jan. 



are only engaged in vile or discreditable oflices by the natives, although 

 otherwise employed by the British, does not differ very much in the dif- 

 ferent eollectorates : the increase in the Khandesh coUectorate is cattri- 

 butableto large tr.'.cts of the country being inhabited by Bheels, who are 

 a low cast ; in fact, less than every seventh person is a low cast ; in 

 Poona about every tenth, and in Dharwar about every eighth. The 

 IMoosulnians are few in number in the Poona and Ahmednuggur Collect- 

 orates, not being one-twentieth of the population in the lirst, nor one- 

 fifteenth in the second ; but, in the Dharwar CoUectorate they displace 

 the Brahmans, and amount to nearly one-eleventh. Although the Moo- 

 sulman power has been paramount nearly throughout all India for cen- 

 turies, it is believed they have never constituted one-fifteenth of the 

 whole population. In the abstract of the population returns from the 

 Ahmednug<Tnr CoUectorate, the casts are not distinguished ; but, in a 

 return of 1828, from the city of Ahrnednuggur, the Hindoo inhabitants 

 are distinguished from the Moosulman ; and it is found that there is 

 the very unusual proportion of one Moosulman to 3*45 Hindoos, or 29 

 per cent, of the whole population. This is to be referred to the fact of 

 Ahmednuggur having once been the capital of the Ahmed Shahee dy- 

 nasty of Moosulman kings ; with these exceptions, although I have not 

 detailed returns to guide me, I believe that the constituents of the po- 

 pulation of the Ahmednuggur CoUectorate do not differ in their propor- 

 tions from those of the Poona CoUectorate. In the census of 1822, the 

 families in the fifteen pergunnahs in the Ahmednuggur CoUectorate, 

 with a populutioii of 409,279 souls, were enumerated, and it appeared 

 that there v/ere 4 53 persons to a family. With respect to the styles of 

 building in the Ahmednuggur CoUectorate, it will be fully illustrated by 

 the facts, that the fzVecZ houses amount only to 10-84 per cent, of the 

 whole; the thatched houses to 32*27 per cent.; and the mud flat-ter- 

 raced houses to 56'89 per cent. 



Bearing in mind the clouds of horse that covered the Dukhun in the 

 war of 1817, it is sufficiently remarkable that in 1822, in the whole 

 CoUectorate of Ahmednuggur there were only 405 full-grown horses 

 1298 full-grown mares ; the total, including colts and fillies, being only 

 2500 ; the ponies amounted to 12,632, of all kinds. 



Proportions engaged m agricidtiire. — In 1828, in this coUectorate, 1878 

 British villages contained 41,948 cultivators or farmers, and a population 

 of 512,818 souls, and allowing five persons to a cultivator's family, 

 40*89 per cent, of the people were engaged in agriculture. In Poona 

 there were 52,668 farmers, being a per centage of55 o0, with five persons 

 to a family. In Dharv/ar 60,701 cultivators, being a per centage of 



