The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c10.265

c10.265

As examples of the condition of the country it will be enough to notice that in A.D. 1803 only twenty-one out of 180 villages were inhabited in the Nevása táluka of Ahmadnagar, a district of the Gangthari. In other parts of the same collectorate, in A.D. 1819, more than half the land was waste and all the country round Sirur was unpeopled. In the Chopda táluka of Khándesh, north of the Tápti, only four per cent of the land was cultivated in A.D. 1818. The city of Ahmadnagar contained in 1818 a population of 13,000, and in three years this number was almost doubled. In Khándesh new towns, such as Dhulia Párola and Jalgaon, sprang up. Land was taken for cultivation on easy terms, and when, after some years of experience, the Revenue Survey was introduced, the progress of the country towards prosperity was steady.