Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c40.63

v3.c40.63

Tararoi.—The *thal* of Tararoi intervenes between that of Gugadeo and the present frontier of Jaisalmer, to which it formerly belonged.² Pokaran is the chief town, not of Tararoi only, but of all the desert interposed between the two chief capitals of Marusthali. The southern part of this *thal* does not differ from that described, but its northern portion, and more especially for sixteen to twenty miles around the city of Pokaran, are low disconnected ridges of loose rock, the continuation of that on which stands the capital of the Bhattis, which give, as we have already said, to this oasis the epithet of Mer, or rocky. The name of Tararoi is derived from *tar*, which signifies moisture, humidity from springs, or the springs themselves, which rise from this *rui*. Pokaran, the residence of Salim Singh (into the history of whose family we have so fully entered in the *Annals of Marwar*), is a town of two thousand houses, surrounded by a stone wall, and having a fort, mounting several guns on its eastern side. Under the west side of the town, the inhabitants have the unusual sight in these regions of running water, though only in the rainy season, for it is soon absorbed by the sands. Some say it comes from the Sar of Kanod, others from the springs in the ridge; at all events, they derive a good and plentiful supply of water from the wells excavated in its bed. The chief of Pokaran, besides its twenty-four villages, holds lands between the Luni and Bandi rivers to the amount of a lakh of rupees. Dunara and Manzil, the fief of the loyal Durgadas, are now in the hands of the traitor Salim. Three coss to the north of Pokaran is the village of Ramdeora, so named from a shrine to Ramdeo, one of the Paladins of the desert, and which attracts people from all quarters to the Mela, or fair, held in the rainy month of Bhadon.¹ Merchants from Karachi-bandar, Tatta, Multan, Shikarpur, and Cutch here exchange the produce of various countries : horses, camels, and oxen used also to be reared in great numbers, but the famine of 1813, and anarchy ever since Raja Man’s accession, added to the interminable feuds between the Battis and Rathors, have checked all this desirable intercourse, which occasionally made the very heart of the desert a scene of joy and activity.