The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s10.9

c7.s10.9

though even there very few of the villages consisted of “more than a rude cluster of thatched mud huts,” and it was stated as their misfortune that there were no village walls for defence, so that the Thags and Rámoshis were frequent visitors.¹ “A man wearing a decent turban or ever so coarse a dress attracts one’s attention as being above the lower orders.”² The sub-divisions of Suvarndurg and Anjanvel were said to be the most prosperous of all in the Southern Konkan, and the revenue there soon after the establishment of our Government was “easily and punctually collected.”¹ It seems probable that the *khots*, while themselves forming a body of men less poverty-stricken than the ordinary ryots, protected the latter to some extent from the rapacity of the Peshwa’s officers.³ The produce of the whole district was reported as very small: still the natural remark was made that “on viewing the face of the country, which to a cursory observer presents little less than bare hills, rocks, ravines, jungle, and mountains, the surprise is rather that there is so much, than that there is no more.” The population was put down at 640,000, and as this included some part of the present Kolába district, while the present population of Ratnágiri alone is put down as over a million, the difference will be seen to be very great.