GAZETTEER FOR THE HAIDARÁBÁD ASSIGNED DISTRICTS, Commonly called BERÁR. 1870. Edited by A. C. Lyall, Commissioner of West Berár. Bombay: PRINTED AT THE EDUCATION SOCIETY'S PRESS, BYCULLA. 1870. DS C3 PREFACE. In October 1867 the Government of India issued orders for the compilation of a Gazetteer of the Haidarábád Assigned Districts. Toward the end of 1868 two Gazetteers had been sent in-one for Elichpúr district, by Captain Szczepanski; the other from Captain J. Bushby, for Wún district. In acknowledging receipt of this last Gazetteer the Resident thus laid out the plan upon which he desired the whole Gazetteer to be prepared for publication. The Reports for all the districts were to be first collected, and their respective merits submitted to general review, in order to "the classification and (if need "be) condensation of the information afforded-not only on one "consistent system, but also with regard to the proportions that "should be allotted to the several component parts of the whole work. "In this way tautology would be avoided." These were the instructions according to which the work was to be edited. But though two out of the six District Gazetteers were sent up by the end of 1868, the other four had not, I believe, been even begun; and it was apparent that, what with the pressure of routine business, and the constant change of officers, the task of making out a Gazetteer pressed rather heavily upon Deputy Commissioners. Yet it was essential to work expeditiously, for much of the material which goes to form a Gazetteer will not keep. Figures, and even facts, vary from year to year; statistics become out of date; railways and famines. revolutionize countries; territorial limits change; head-quarters are shifted; the compiler toils in vain after an energetic administration; and in Berár a turn of politics might leave him, before an exhaustive description were completed, with no British province to describe. So the attempt to lay upon Deputy Commissioners the task of elaborating these Reports for their districts was abandoned, and instead they were asked to set about collecting materials to be arranged under a classification which was circulated for use. And the task was also shortened by withdrawing from this classified list those subjects which either demanded special knowledge (as geology), or comprehensive treatment for the entire province, as in the case of history. The consequence of this alteration of the original method has been that a separate Gazetteer, complete in all its parts, for each district became impossible. Three out of the six Gazetteers at first contemplated were never written at all; while the rough material and memoranda that were eventually obtained differed widely in quantity and quality. Then by the time that these had been collected from various sources many portions of the earlier Gazetteers had become more or less obsolete, and most of the remainder needed revision. Moreover, the general chapters on history and geology superseded or absorbed corresponding district sections. It was therefore resolved, with the consent of the authors of the finished Reports, to alter the whole plan of the Gazetteer for the province-to break up the divisions by districts, and to substitute an arrangement according to subjects. The Editor was thereby enabled to avail himself more effectually of all contributions received; to select the good and reject the bad parts of an article without appearing to prune too unmercifully; and to give each district its share of the advantage gained by massing under one chapter the whole array of facts and figures bearing upon one subject. By this alliance of forces each district supplies the others' deficiency, and gaps are reinforced along the whole line; while such information as is forthcoming can be presented in the handiest formation and most convenient series. This gain, such as it is, has been made, at any rate, without any sacrifice of things essential; since the territorial limits of our districts have only very recently been determined, and have been marked out upon considerations with which the Gazetteer has no real concern. This brief account of the process by which the Gazetteer has been put together is intended to explain why its internal arrangement is not throughout symmetrical. Chapters IX. and XIV. contain each a complete article, and Chapter VIII. is almost entirely of one piece : for these the Editor is exclusively responsible, both as to substance and style, since nothing has been absorbed or extracted without acknowledgment from the district papers. The remaining chapters are prefaced by a sort of introduction, meant usually to bring the subject within compass of a general survey before going into details, sometimes meant to supply omissions in the descriptions that follow. But this introduction has more than once spread out into a kind of separate dissertation. Then, after the introductions, come District Selections, chosen out of all the materials provided by district officers. It will be noticed that every chapter has not a "selection" for each of all six districts, because, as has been mentioned above, only two complete Gazetteers were obtained; and so long as enough had been said on any topic six separate contributions were not insisted upon. The whole work, as now sent forth with permission of the Resident at Haidarábád, is of course very imperfect, and might have been amplified by devoting another year to collecting material. But the present Editor believes that a Gazetteer should be restricted within somewhat narrow conditions of time and space-of time, because much of its contents will not keep; of space, because to be useful a Gazetteer must be brief and compendious. The first object of the publication is taken to be that of presenting a statistical account of the province, of its people, its social state, economy, and natural resources, with some narrative of its antecedent history as framework and background to the picture. The second object-as yet very inadequately attained— should be (it is conceived) to encourage and promote the compilation for each province of something like what is called in England a County History. But with regard to this object the business of an English official editor is only to point the way; and in the Berár Gazetteer this has been attempted by inserting here and there (especially in Chapter X.) much minute local description which is of interest only to the provincials. The fulfilment of such a project must be left to the people themselves; many years hence, when one of our educated natives shall have contracted some tincture of real literary taste, he may take to collecting and preserving the annals of his province, which are now fast disappearing as the " old order changeth, yielding place to new." However, the Gazetteer now produced may serve as a first edition, to be much improved hereafter. The author of the papers on Elichpúr district is Captain H. S. Szczepanski, Deputy Commissioner, whose description of Elichpúr City and its environs is good. The accounts of Melghat were composed by Captain K. L. Mackenzie, excepting certain portions taken from a Report by Captain Farrar. The Wún Gazetteer was written by Mr. C. A. Davies, Extra Assistant Commissioner, under the superintendence of Captain J. Bushby, Deputy Commissioner. For Amráoti some very useful articles were prepared by Captain J. Alexander, and it is unlucky that many of his commercial statistics lost their original value through delay in their publication. In Akola the work had been quite neglected until in 1869 it was made over to Mr. J. H. Burns, who wrote all the selected pieces for that important district. They are marked, for the most part, by that exact knowledge which is possessed only by writers who (so to speak) have seen and handled what they describe. To Mr. Burns the Gazetteer is indebted for much solid information which, on certain topics, his contributions alone supply. Major J. Allardyce exerted himself to procure valuable material for Buldána; and by him Mr. Náráyan Wáman, Deputy Educational Inspector, was induced to write the creditable, because original, accounts of towns in that district. Contributions from outside Berár-from Dr. T. Oldham, Superintendent of Geological Survey; from Colonel A. C. McMaster, of the |