The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s2.14

c7.s2.14

"The Konkan in early times seems to have been a thinly inhabited forest, from which character it has even now but partially emerged."² The last remark is at the present day true of part of the North Konkan only, the South possessing a population very thick compared with its arable area. It may be considered certain, however, that the whole was to a comparatively late period a district "where beasts with man divided empire claimed." The population Elphinstone considers to have been always Marátha,³ but there is a great difference between the inhabitants of the northern and those of the southern half. In the latter the population is purely Marátha, and the castes are few and very exactly defined; but in the north there are large tribes more or less aboriginal, several somewhat