MAIRWARA is inhabited by predatory tribes, and belongs partly to Udaipur. Jodhpur, and the British Government, in virtue of its possession of Ajmir. Mairwara was entirely subdued by a British force in 1821.. It was taken under British administration, and a local corps was raised, to which Udaipur and 'Jodhpur were to contribute annually 15,000 rupees each. Under the British Government, the Mairs greatly benefited. In 1847, the British wished to take over all Mair wara, but this was not done. The Mair is also called Mairote and 3Iairawut. Mera is a moun tain in Sanskrit ; Mairawut and Mariote, of or belonging to the mountain ; the name of the Albanian mountaineer, Mainote, has the same signification. Mairwara is that portion of the Aravalli chain between Komulmer and Ajmir, a space of about 90 miles in length, and varying in breadth from 6 to 20. The Mair are a branch of the Cheeta, an important division of the Meena, a race which consists of as many branches as their conquerors the Rajputs. All these wild races mingle their pedigree with that of their conquerors. The Cheeta-Meena accordingly claim descent from a grandson of the last Chauhan emperor of Dehli. Unail and Anoop, they say, were the sons of Lakha, the nephew of the Chauhan king. The cocoanut was sent from Jeysulmir, offering princesses of that house in marriage, but an investigation into their maternal ancestry disclosed that they were the issue of 'a Meena kept woman, and their birth being thus revealed, they became exiles from Ajmir, and associates with their maternal relatives. Unail espoused the daughter of a Meena chieftain, by whom he had Cheeta, whose descendants enjoy almost a monopoly of power iu Mairwara. The sons of Cheeta, who occupied the northern frontier near Ajmir, became Muhammadans about fifteen generations ago, when Doodha, the sixteenth from the founder of the 'race, was created Dawad Khan by the hakim of Ajmir ; and as Athoon was his residence, the Khan of Athoon signified the chief of the Mairote. Athoon is still the chief town of the Mair race. Chang, Jhak, and Rajosi are the principal towns adjoining Athoon. Anoop also took a Meena wife, by whom he had Burrar, whose descendants have continued true to their original tenets. Their chief places are Burrar, Bairawara, Mundilla, etc. The Meena were always. notorious for their lawless habits, and importance was attached to them so far back as the period of Beesildeo, the celebrated prince of Ajmir, whom the bard Chand states to have reduced them to submission, making them carry water in the streets of Ajmir. Like all moun
taineers, they broke out whenever the hands of power were feeble. The Mair country is situated but a very few miles west of Ajmir, and is com posed of successive ranges of huge rocky hills, the only level country being the valleys running between them. From the sturdy valour of this race, the rulers of India never made any impres sion on them, notwithstanding their vicinity to the occasional residence, for a long period, of the emperors of Hindustan. In later times the Mair were the terror of their lowland neighbours ; and even the Rajputs, perhaps with the sole exception of the Rohilla, the bravest men in India, dreaded their approach. The Koli assert their relationship to them, and they admit having intermarried with the Bhil and Meena, and, as Colonel Dixon says, for hundreds of years they have been recruited by refugees and all sorts of rascals from Hindustan, and they are probably a very mixed race. They are described as rather good looking. No native corps did more sub stantial service at the time of the mutiny than the Mairwara Battalion. The mere fact of its having held Ajmir with an immense arsenal, when the troops in Naseerabad mutinied, was a boon to the British which it would be difficult to over estimate. Had the mutineers got possession of the arsenal, with its vast stores, it would have given them a prestige which would have made it impossible for the Rajput princes to resist the pressure of the people to rise against the British Government. In subsequent actions they were always loyal, often very gallant. A single com pany on one occasion turned the whole of Tantia Topi's force when trying to pass the Aravalli. They were some years afterwards formed into a police corps. This has been felt keenly by the Mairs, who are proud of their old prowess. Ajmir is remarkable for a monument to Colonel Dixon, of the Bengal Artillery, who was superintendent there for many years. His efforts in reducing the Mairs to order, in clearing a jungly country of bands of robbers, in forming an irregular corps out of those very banditti, and in persuading the inhabitants to do away with witch-finding, female infanticide, and slavery, were repeatedly acknow ledged. He died in June 1857. He had, with others, to leave Ajmir when the Bengal sepoys broke into mutiny at Naseerabad, the military cantonment, and the Bombay cavalry, till then believed to be stanch, refused to charge their comrades.