Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.210

v3.c43.t1.210

Our route was through a very narrow valley, little susceptible of cultivation, though a few patches were visible near the hamlets, scattered here and there. The scene was wild, and the cool morning air imparted vigour to my exhausted frame. The slopes of the valley in many places are covered with trees to the very summit of the mountains, on which the kukra or wild cock was crowing his matins, and we were in momentary expectation of seeing some bears, fit associates of the Minas, in their early promenades. As we approached Khajuri, the valley widened, so as to admit of its being termed a township of fifty-two thousand bighas, which afforded another proof of ancestral wisdom, for it was in sasan, or grant to the Brahmans: but the outlaws of the Karar, though they sacrifice a tithe of their plunder to ‘our Lady of the Pass’ (Ghata Rani), have little consideration for the idlers of the plains. This feeling is not confined to the Minas; for the Bhumia Rajputs, despising all the anathemas of the church, have seized on the best lands of Khajuri. But only a small portion of the Bawana (fifty-two thousand), about seventeen thousand English acres, is arable.