THE BERA'R GAZETTEER. ERRATUM. For Sarkár read ( passim) Sirkar. CHAPTER I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. THE word Berár signifies now, politically and geographically, the districts which have been assigned by His Highness the Nizám to the British Government under the treaties of 1853 and 1861, though it has had different meanings at different periods, as the historical chapter will show. The actual position and boundaries of the existing province are marked on the map annexed to this Gazetteer. Berár forms the northernmost portion of the Haidarábád State, running up from the south with a breadth gradually narrowing until an extreme point touches the Tapti river, half-surrounded on the east, north, and northwest by the Central Provinces, and meeting the Khándesh district of the Bombay Presidency along a section of about forty miles of its western border. The Gáwilgarh hills-a range belonging to the Sátpura mountains-form the geographical boundary of Berár on the north, with a deep indent made by the Melghát tract; on the east its frontier is marked accurately by the Wardha river down to its confluence with the Painganga, and on the south by the Painganga for about twothirds of the frontier's length. From the map it might be guessed that these convenient water-lines are natural and ancient provincial boundaries, yet they were both marked out by very recent treaties: thus illustrating rather remarkably the general rule that a frontier which follows river-courses is always political and comparatively modern. On the west the border of Berár is merely an artificial line cutting across a broad valley from the Sátpura mountains to the hills on which stands Ajanta, and proceeding southward over these hills until it turns eastward by a sharp angle near Jálna. This Ajanta range intersects. the whole province from west to east, and its steep ridge divides the interior geography into two systems. Setting aside the Melghat mountain tract as abnormal, we have two distinct sections of Berár-the Payanghát or lowland country, bounded on the north by the Gáwilgarh hills, and on the south by the outer scarps of the Ajanta range; and the Bálághát or upland country above the Ajanta ridge, sloping down southward beyond the gháts or passes which lead up it. So that the Páyanghát is a wide valley running up eastward between this ridge General Description. |