"to return on any suitable opportunity. Thus hundreds of families 66 "But there shortly supervened the consequences of the American war, which indeed stimulated many parts of India, but which (if the "metaphor is admissible) positively electrified Berár. Before this, "cotton had been one out of many staples. It now became the prevail"ing, absorbing, predominating product. Much of other sorts of "culture was displaced to make room for it. The people imported "quantities of food-grain from the Nágpúr country, in order that they "might have the more land whereon to raise the remunerative cotton crop. The staple, too, is one that requires much manual toil in weed"ing, picking, ginning, packing, and the like. Hence there arose a "great and urgent demand for rural labour, which of course operated "to raise the standard of wages. A great exportation of cotton to "Bombay was soon established. The importation of foreign produce "was far from proportionate; consequently, much of the return for this cotton consisted of cash and bullion. This circumstance, making 66 money cheap, tended to raise the prices of all things. Another effect "was that the labouring and producing classes, especially the agri"culturists, were rapidly enriched. "At the very same time, the construction of railway works "throughout the whole length of the province was at its full swing, "not only causing the employment of all labour, skilled and unskilled, "that could be got on the spot, but also introducing a large foreign "element, which settled temporarily, at least, in the province. Thus "the value of labour, and the rates of prices generally, were still further "enhanced. "In other parts of India the operation of these or similar causes "has been perceptible, but in many parts it has been partial only; in "others its force may have been detracted from by other influences. “But in Berár it was universal, extending from one end of the province "to the other; and there was nothing whatever to counteract its force. "It is this sort of universality which constitutes, perhaps, the peculiarity "of the process in these districts. "This state of things has rendered the people generally prosperous, progressive, and contented. Some classes do, unfortunately, suffer "therefrom. This, though perhaps it may be mitigated, cannot alto"gether be helped. Those who suffer will naturally complain, but "that the accession to provincial prosperity has been vast and rapid is unquestionable. The most sanguine anticipations of the growth of "the province in importance have been more than realized, and there "is everything in favour of its further increase.” 18 B G+ History. Nizam's Sovereignty. Principal Remarkable Places. Antiquities. CHAPTER X. PRINCIPAL TOWNS AND REMARKABLE PLACES. The principal towns of Berár are-Elichpúr, Akot, Amráoti, Khámgaon, Bálápúr, Básim, Umarkher. These, with many others of less note, are all described in the "District Selections" of this chapter. Amráoti is the richest town of Berár, with the most numerous and substantial commercial population. Khámgaon does the largest business in cotton during the cotton season, but ranks much below Amráoti in every other respect. Elichpúr is the decayed capital of the old kingdom and province; it still contains the highest number of inhabitants, but all advantages of situation in early days have now turned to disadvantages. The former local rulers of Berár entrenched themselves below their fortress of Gáwilgarh, under the difficult hills in the north-east corner of their territory-well out of the road and reach of the great invading armies which passed to and from the Dakhan by Burhanpúr. But, now that peace has succeeded to war, the town finds itself left high and dry-distant from all the main streams of communication and commerce. Remarkable Places. The Lonár lake and temple, the remains of ancient buildings round about Elichpúr, the hill-forts of Gáwilgarh and Narnála, the falls of Sahasra Kund on the Painganga, are perhaps the only "places" of interest which a stranger would visit within the Haidarábád Assigned Districts. But just across the north-eastern boundary, about six miles from Elichpúr, stands a cluster of curious Jain temples at the end of a picturesque ravine-the spot is called Muktagiri. And the fort of Máhúr, which for centuries played its part in the history of old Berár, is separated from the modern province only by the Painganga river. This stronghold is the usual circumvallation of a hill crest; its machicolated walls are in fair order; it has only one gate, on the north side; and its interior is entirely commanded by hills across a narrow gorge on the east, also by the peak outside its southern bastion, on which stands the Máhádeo temple. Antiquities. A brief and very imperfect note on the antiquities of Berár may be inserted here, as the subject cannot by the present writer be treated in the manner that should entitle it to a separate chapter. may be The oldest relic of man's handiwork now known in Berár guessed to be the plain Buddhist monastery cut out of the basalt rock close by the town of Pátúr, Akola district. It consists of two colonnades on massive rough-hewn pillars, with adyta inside; it has no images or carving of any kind. Probably other such rock-dwellings exist: there is one near Mánjira, in the Melghat, but no more are known to Europeans. Throughout Berár are a number of temples and religious habitations, more or less ruined, built of stones very carefully dressed and adjusted, the oldest without (apparently) any cement, all with very little of it-in the solid fashion of architects who distrusted the arch, and laid massive stone lintels over monolithic pillars.* Most of these are found above the southern range of hills in the Bálághát, where they have been better preserved by their seclusion than in the valley of the Páyanghát. Some of them are of plain stones, others elaborately carved; grotesque brackets often surmount the pillars; and the chambers are usually roofed by the horizontal domes described in Fergusson's architecture.† All these buildings belong to styles and epochs fixed by Mr. Fergusson,‡ and on two of them inscriptions have been discovered, but not yet deciphered. By far the finest specimen in Berár of this early Hindu architecture is the temple at Lonár, where there is also a very fine stone tank or cistern built in the early Hindú style. It is surrounded by a wall eleven feet high, pierced on three sides by passages leading by flights of steps to four terraces decreasing in their square in the order of their descent. The first terrace is 85 feet square. The walls of the enclosure and at each side of the steps are ornamented with beautiful pilasters and nimbs ; and on the fourth side of the enclosure is a handsome balcony projecting over the first and second terraces. It is built in the irregular starlike shape so well known in the Dakhan; the outside walls are covered with figures and other carvings of luxuriant variety; it stands on a raised basement, and the unfinished roof seems intended to take a pyramidal form. Of the lesser temples belonging to this class may be mentioned two or three handsome buildings near Buldána, the remarkable ruin at Mehkar, a very pretty Jain shrine at Sirpúr, with ceiling carved curiously, a small but interesting temple at Bársi Tákli, another at Karinja, and two temples at Púsad. Others of equal merit, but unknown to this writer, have been found along the Painganga in Eastern Berár. In fact, the province is, archæologically speaking, but yet very imperfectly explored. At Mehkar the temple stands on a small spur of a hill projecting from the lower or west part of the town, and almost * These are called by the natives Hemar Panthi, being supposed to have been built in one night by demons for whom one Hemar Pant, a famous physician and sorcererthe Cornelius Agrippa of the Dakhan-was compelled to find employment. To build temples without mortar seemed an interminable kind of job, but Hemar Pant's engineers had finished before cockcrow. Readers of the Lay of the Last Minstrel will remember that Michael Scott got out of a similar dilemma by setting his devils to make ropes of sand. † Vol. II., pp. 552, 553. See History of Architecture, Vol. II., Part III., Book 3. Antiquities. Antiquities. reaching the bed of the Painganga river. There is in the centre an open and sunken courtyard 21 feet 10 inches square, reached by a descent of two steps in each face; it is surrounded by a veranda supported by three colonnades, consisting altogether of sixty columns; the veranda is closed in on all four sides, there being but one entrance through a small door on the east side. The walls are ornamented with pilasters, thirty-two in number, there being one opposite each row of pillars. The erection is 73 feet 4 inches in depth by 72 feet 9 inches in width. The columns are the principal feature of the interior; in general style they resemble those of the oldest temples all over Western India, but they are almost facsimiles of some to be met with in the very oldest Jain temples in Gujarát. The style and construction of the roof also is identical with the oldest Gujarát temples, and may possibly have been historically connected with more Western styles through the Chalukya dynasty that ruled at Devangiri, now Daulatábád.* Rája Jai Sing's chhattri, or umbrella, a pavilion on the high bank of the river at Bálápúr, was probably built in Aurangzebe's time. At Básim and Umarkher are handsome modern Hindu temples, in good taste externally. 'In Musalmán architecture we have two very creditable mosques at Fatekhelda and Rohankera (Buldana district), which are exactly alike; the latter bears date 1582 A.D. There are also some fair specimens about Elichpúr City, and the large mosque on Gáwilgarh is good. But perhaps the projecting balcony windows on each side of the fine inner gateway to the Narnála fortress are the best sample of architectural details in a Mahomedan building of this province. In domestic architecture the wood-carving on verandahs and balconies often sets off very much the front of the larger houses, and relieves the monotony of plain-faced streets. The projecting balconies of the old palace at Elichpúr are elegant in shape and fashion of detail, and the interior courts are not without some merit. Artistic and mechanical skill is just now at a low ebb in Berár; nevertheless the natives, when left to their own devices, do here, as in most other parts of India, show themselves far superior in architectural judgment and design to the Europeans who pretend to teach them. Wherever you come upon a row or blocks of flat-sided straight-lined buildings of one monotonous, unmeaning, pattern, there you have the mark of a foreign. administration. Principal Chikalda. DISTRICT SELECTIONS. Melgha't. Principal Places. The Melghat contains no town. The Europeans all reside at Chikalda. The plateau of Chikalda, upon which the bungalows are built, is 3,777 feet above the sea, and 182 feet higher than Gáwilgarh, *From a description by Major R. Gill. distant to the south-west about twelve furlongs. Chikalda is distant from Elichpúr about 20 miles by the usual road, which winds up the western side of the Gáwilgarh hill. The ascent is generally easy, but there are some rather steep portions: it can be ridden the whole way on horseback. Supplies and baggage have to be brought up on bullocks or camels. Houses were first built here in 1839. "The plateau of Chikalda," says Dr. Riddell, late Superintending Surgeon at Haidarábád, "is not above : Climate and natural features. three-quarters of a mile broad and about a mile in length but though thus limited in size it has easy access to the surrounding table-land and valleys, that renders its contracted space of little moment. The form of the plateau in outline, when viewed from the west, bears a fanciful resemblance to a map of the British Isles. "As the slope of the mountains inclines towards the north, a more pleasing character presents itself in this direction than towards the south, where the face of the mountains stands denuded as a bold, precipitous, and cliff-like barrier, admitting only at intervals of winding pathways steep and difficult of ascent up its crazy front." From September the temperature is so equable, cool, and bracing that without any exaggeration it may be styled a European spring. On the 26th of January 1840 the thermometer suspended in the open air under a tree stood at noon at 62°. The chief villages in Melghat are (besides Chikalda) Dewa and Bairagarh, where annual fairs are held, and following these come the villages of Principal Chikalda. where weekly bazárs are held. Dárni, the largest of all the villages, does not contain quite 800 inhabitants. Antiquities and Remarkable Places.* Nearly opposite to the village of Mánjira, on the western face of a hill to the west of the valley, are two small rock-cut temples or Mánjira. *This description of Melghát antiquities is mainly copied from a report by Captain A. Farrar, Assistant Commissioner, Haidarábád Assigned Districts. |