GAEKWAR, a feudatm7 sovereign of India, who resides at Baroda. The family are of the cowherd race, and formed part of the great 3fahratta Con federacy, to whose supremacy the British succeeded. The Gaekwar family sprang in 1720 from Da maji Gaekwar Shamsher Bahadur (obiit 1768), an officer under Khandi Rao Holkar, and they ruled till the treaty with the British Government in 1802. In 1808, Colonel Alexander Walker, then resident at the Gaekwar's court, was able to arrange for payment to the Gaekwar, from ten Rajput chiefs, of a c,ertain fixed sum as suzerainty. When the Peshwa was overthrown in 1817, the British succeeded to the chief control, with an annual tribute, in the proportion of 1 to the British Government and + to the Gaekwar. The tributaries aro called talukdars, of whom there aro 224, and each of whom possesses exclusive jurisdiction in his own district ; and only the Grassia and Mul Grassia are allowed to litigate with their ruling chiefs. These are sprung either from cadets of the ruling tribe, or from proprietors of lands which they seized, and now defend with all the proverbial tenacity of the Rajput, who freely gives and takes life for acres. The terri
tories of tho Gaekwar have an area of 4399 square miles, with a population above two millions, and an annual estimated revenue in 1875 of 11,026,482, but £175,771 was not realized. The Gaekwar Mulhar Rao, on the 22d April 1875, was dethroned, and was replaced by Syaji Rao, a descendant of Pratap Rao, son of Piliji Rao, the founder of the family, and younger brother of Darnaji, whose line terminated with .3Iulhar Rao. 3fulhar Rao was sent to Madras, where he died in 1882. Lord Salisbury, when Secretary of State for India, on the Sd of June 1875, is said to have ex pressed tho opinion of tho then administration, that 3fulhar Rao could not be treated as having been proved guilty of the crime of poisoning ;' and that the stredhun, amounting in money to nearly £1,500,000, belonged to tho ranas as private property.