All of the Bhil race who live along the skirts of the Satpura range appear to have embraced Mahomedanism, though they do not intermarry with the purer Mahomedans.
The Kshatriya class contains mostly a set of very dubious pretenders to the honour of Rajput descent. Mahrattas of no particular family usu ally call themselves Thakur ; even a Kunbi will occasionally try to elevate himself thereby ; while the Purbho, Kayasth, and other castes of mixed origin and good social status are constantly invad ing the Kshatriya military order. The distinction is also claimed by the rajas of the Satpura Hills, who assert that they are Rajputs depressed by the necessities of mountain life, whereas they are Gond or Kurku elevated by generations of high land chieftainship.
The Sudra caste in Berar, as in Mysore, all eat together, although they do not intermarry. The Kunbi and Mali eat flesh, drink liquor moder ately, and their widows may always re-marry if they choose, excepting the widows of Deshmukhs, who ape high caste prejudices. The Koshti is a weaving caste. The Banjara are comparatively numerous in Berar ; their occupation as carriers is gone, and during their transitional stage they gave 'a good deal of trouble to the police. The Dhangar are sheep farmers, and the Hatkar, one of their clans, still hold much land on the border of the Nizam's territory, and were until A.D. 1853 notorious for pugnacity and rebellion. The Bhoi has recently been supposed to belong to a widely-spread primitive tribe ; the Garpagari live by the profession of conjuring away hailstorms. Any one who has watched the medicine man at work has witnessed a relic of pure fetishism, possibly handed down from the pre-Aryan races and their earliest liturgies. The Vidur and Krishnapakshi are the same ; they are descend ants of Brahmans by women of inferior caste ; and Krishnapakshi is only an astronomical metaphor for describing a half-breed, the term meaning literally dark-fortnight,' and referring to the half darkened orb of the moon. The Mhar have been taken to be the same with the Dher, a very useful and active tribe. The Mang appear to be the lowest of all in the social scale. The paucity of the Khakrob or Bhangi, who are so numerous in Northern India, is a serious sanitary difficulty. The Kaikari are a tribe formerly well known for their thieving habits. Of the aborigines, the Gond, Korku, and Bhil are the only completely preserved specimens of tribes. The two first retain their languages, while the Bhil tongue seems to have become extinct very recently in Berar, its disuse being probably expedited by their general conversion to Mahomedanism. The Ramosi, a predatory race, speak Telugu in their families, and are doubtless from Telingana. The original Pardhan among the Gond answered to the Bhat among the Hindus, but many seem to have settled in the plains as a separate class of Gond.
The chief towns are Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Aurangabad, Beder, Mominabad or Amba Jogi, Ellichpur, Warangal, Oomrawati, and Nandeir.
Mahomedans, though of the dominant class, are not numerous in any district of the Hyder abad dominions. They dwell in considerable
numbers in Hyderabad, Beder, Kulburga, Aurangabad, Karinjab, and Ellichpur,-places where rulers formerly resided •, but in other places they are few, and everywhere they look to state employ. They have no lands, but several of them have the state revenues in jaghir. Out of 158,721 of these religionists in Berar, only 1296 are professional. The Syuds of Kulburga and Gogi and Hyderabad seem impoverized ; the Pathan, Moghul, Arab, Persian, and Habshi Maho medans are soldiers, and those of Berar are noted for their idleness and profligacy, seldom taking to the plough.
The Godavery, rising on the eastern declivity of the Western Ghats, disembogues in the Bay of Bengal. The total length of this great river, along the Hyderabad border and through the territory, is about 600 miles, for about 200 of which it is navigable from June to February. The Wardha rises in the hills of Betul and Ch'hindwara. Near the junction of the Pain-Ganga with the Wardha, and in the valley of the latter 1 river, there are coal-fields. Those which have been examined over a small area near Sasti and Paoni show an average of 40 feet in thickness.
Except in the city of Hyderabad itself, no effort or attempt had been made to educate the people of the Hyderabad Territories, though education is making enormous strides in lerar and in British Maharastra. There was no proper school met with in all the Editor's journeys, in 1866-70, amounting to about 7000 miles, and only occa sionally a few lads, children of foreigners, were to be seen learning in a verandah the elethents of the Hindi or Mahrati.
The Dowan, Sir SalarJung, in 1868, made changes in the administrative machinery, and five Sudder Taltikdars or Divisional Commissioners were ap pointed, for Aurangabad, fir, and Purbhani ; for Nandeir, Naldrug, and Feder; for Nulgonda, Khumnmin ; for Lingsngur and Mellor° ; and for Indore, Meduck, Yolgundul, and Surapur. The first three commissioners on Rs. 1500 a month, and last two on Rs. 1000.
The people in the first two divisions speak 3Iahrata, the next two the Telugu, and the last are the Canareso districts of the Nizain's Territories. Each of the above fourteen districts is presided over by a talukdar on from 400 to 600 rupees a month, assisted by deputy talukdars, who control and superintend the work of naibs or tabsildars of talukas. Tho commissioners go on circuit within their respective jurisdictions during eight months of the year, spending the remaining four at some central locality. The commissioners com municate with the Minister through the 3Ialguzari or Civil Secretariat. There is a: separate depart ment of police, with a Suddur Mobtamim or in spector-general. Immediately under his orders are placed five naib molitamim or deputy inspector generals, to whom the Zillah Mohtamim or the district superintendents are directly subordinate. Each district has its Zillah engineer. There is a Conservator of Forests, and chief inspector of the medical department.