RAJPUTANA stretches on the N.W. part of British India from lat. 23° •15' to 30° N., and from long. 69° 30' to 78° 1.5' E. Its area is about 132,460 square miles, and in 1881 its esti mated population was 10,729.114. Two small portions of this region, Ajmir and Merwara, of 2710 square miles, are under British sway, but all the remainder, with its 10,268,392 inhabitants, is under the rule of 20 native princes of whom 17 are of Rajput descent, 2 are Jet', and one sovereign professes Muhammadanism.
A great part of Rajputana is sterile. A marked feature is the Aravallt mountains, which intersect it from N.E. to S.W., where they culminate in Mount Abu, but at the N.E. end the range breaks into detached hills and rocky eminences, all traceable in a general direction as far as the group of hills near Khetri. Amid these disunited hills stands the town of Ajmir on the highest level of an open table-land, spre'ading eastward toward Jeypore, and sloping on all sides.
All the south-east of Rajputana is watered by the drainage of the Vindhya mountains, carried north-eastward by the Banas and Chambal rivers. North of Jhalra Petals is the Patar plateau, upon which lies all Korah State, with parts of Bundi and of Jhalawar. This plateau falls by a very gradual descent to the Gwalior country and the biotin of the Iletwa river. The Chat/dial flow. thmugh the territory for about one-third of ita cosmic, aad forms its boundary for another third.
The lianas rises in the south-west, near Kan kraoli, in Merwara. It collects nearly all the drainage of the Mewar plateau with that of the south-eastern slope,' and hill tracts of the Aravalli.
The salt lake at Siunbhar is the only natural expanse of water, but there are artificial lakes in the eastern states about Bundi and Kotah. and in Ajinir. The largest of these are in the Mcwar State, near Debar and Kankraoli. At the former place is a noble sheet of water 25 or 30 miles in circumference, constructed in s.n. 1681 by Jye Singh, and named from hint tho Jye Samand, now known as the Rajsamand. It is a stupendous work of marble, and with an adjacent causeway dams the lake at Kankraoli. It cost
upwards of a million sterling. The spectator who views this royal sea or Rajsarnand on the borders of the plain, as also the pillar of victory towering over the plains of Malwa, erected on the summit of Chitore by Rana Mokul, or the palaces and temples in this ancient abode, and the regal resid ences erected by the princes, must be 6161 with astonishment at the resources of the Mewar State. They are such as to explain the metaphor of Zalim Singh, who said every pinch of the soil of Mewar contains gold.' The rainfall throughout Rajputana is nowhere copious, and in several parts is scant,—Abu, 68 • inches ; Ajmir, 24 ; Bhurtpur, 32 ; Bikanir. N.. 8 ; Bikanir, S., 20 ; Jhalra Petal], 40; and Mewar, 23. Even where the fall is greatest, the nature of the soil allows it to flow away or be ab sorbed, and only now are cfforta being made to store it.
Ulwar, Jeypore, Kotah, Bundi, and Udaipur have very fair land, but Jeysulmir, Bikanir, and parts of Jodhpur or Merwara are particularly barren. Dearths have repeatedly occurred front scant rainfall, and 1848-1849 and 1858-1869 were famine years, the latter being followed by myriads of locusts. The region has four physical divisions, viz. (1) the desert regions, to the north and west of the Aravalli mountains, comprising niore than one-half the entire territory, comprehend Merwara, Ilikanir, Jeystdinir, and theShekhawutti ; (2) the hill region includes the greater part of Mewar and Banswara, Dungarpur, Partabgarh, and Serolti; (3) the S.E. division of Ilaraoti in cludes Bundi, Kotalt, and Jhalawar; and (4) Eastern and Central Raj putanaextends from Ulwar to Kerrowlee ; also, upwards of 60.000 square miles of Bahawulpur am part of the great Raj putana desert.
Westward of the Aravalli there is a atrip of soil along the banka of the Lutti. which occasion ally overflows, and on the subsidence of she waters an alluvial deposit remains which yields good crops of barley and of wheat.