1837-] Account of the Province of Ramnad, 371 



Account of the Province of Ramnad, Southern Peninsula of India, 

 Compiled from the " Mackenzie Collection" and edited by the Se+ 

 cretary to the Royal Asiatic Society. 



INTRODUCTION. 



This province, the government of which is now administered by the 

 British, formed in ancient times the greater part of the principality, or 

 fiefship, of the Setu-paltis, the chiefs or guardians of the passage lead- 

 ing from the continent of India to the island of Rameswara, and thence 

 to the opposite coast of Ceylon, called Rama'sBridge, or Adam's Bridge. 

 These chieftains, dating their authority from the period of the esta- 

 blishment of a place of pilgrimage on the island of Rameswara, by the 

 Great Rama, claim an antiquity even higher than that of the Pandyans, 

 or kings of Madura, but to whom, it would appear, that they were, in 

 general, tributary, though now and then asserting and maintaining their 

 independence. Of their history, however, we are not now to speak, but 

 of the province as it was in the year 1814, when the data were taken 

 from which chiefly the following account is compiled. It lies between 

 the ninth and tenth degrees of north latitude, and the seventy-eighth 

 and seventy-ninth of east longitude ; is bounded on the north by the pro- 

 vinces of Tanjore and Pudukotta, on the south and east by the sea, and 

 on the west by the districts of Tinnevelly, Madura, and Sivaganga ; and 

 comprehends an area of nearly two thousand five hundred square miles. 

 Its general aspect is that of high and lowlands, the latter having numer- 

 ous artificial lakes, constructed for the purpose of promoting cultivation j 

 the former exhibiting a variety of dry grain-fields, while the northern 

 districts abound with extensive groves of Palmyra trees, with scarcely 

 a vestige of jungle. The whole is divided into seventeen districts, com- 

 prising one thousand six hundred and sixty-eight towns and principal 

 and subordinate villages, with a population, at the period to which we 

 allude, of about one hundred and fifty-seven thousand. 



FORTS, TOWNS, AND VILLAGES. 



Ramnad,* the capital of the province, has both a fort and a town. The 

 former is a fortification, the sides of which, from north to south, and 

 from east to west, are each about half-a-mile in length, consisting of a 

 single wall, strengthened with thirty-two bastions, built at equal distan- 

 ces from one another, and with one gate-way which is to the east. The 

 wall is twenty-seven feet high and five feet thick, without a rampart, 

 but with loop-holes, and surrounded by a ditch. This fort was built 



* Properly, Ramanatha-pfiram, from Rama, the god, or king of that name ; natha, a 

 lord, and ptiram, a town or city. 



