Ahmednagar, Khandesh (partitioned into two districts in 1906), Nasik, Poona, Satara, Sholapur, Belgaum, Bijapur, Dharwar, Kanara, Kolaba, Ratnagiri, Karachi, Hyderabad, Shikarpur, Thar and Parkar, and Upper Sind Frontier. The native states comprise in all 353 separate units, which are administered either by political agents or by the collectors of the districts in which the smaller states are situated. The chief groups of states are North Gujarat, comprising Cutch, Kathiawar agency, Palanpur agency, Mahi Kantha agency, Rewa Kantha agency and Cambay; South Gujarat, comprising Dharampur, Bansda and Sachin; North Konkan, Nasik and Khandesh, comprising Khandesh political agency, Surgana and Jawhar; South Konkan and Dharwar, comprising Janjira, Sawantwari and Savanur; the Deccan Satara Jagirs, comprising Akalkot, Bhor, Aundh, Phaltan, Jath and Daphlapur; the southern Mahratta states, comprising Kolhapur and other states, and Khairpur in Sind. The native states under the supervision of the government of Bombay are divided, historically and geographically, into two main groups. The northern or Gujarat group includes the territories of the gaekwar of Baroda, with the smaller states which form the administrative divisions of Cutch, Palanpur, Rewa Kantha, and Mahi Kantha. These territories, with the exception of Cutch, have an historical connexion, as being the allies or tributaries of the gaekwar in 1805, when final engagements were included between that prince and the British government. The southern or Mahratta group includes Kolhapur, Akalkot, Sawantwari, and the Satara and southern Mahratta Jagirs, and has an historical bond of union in the friendship they showed to the British in their final struggle with the power of the peshwa in 1818. The remaining territories may conveniently be divided into a small cluster of independent zamin-daris, situated in the wild and hilly tracts at the northern extremity of the Sahyadri range, and certain principalities which, from their history or geographical position, are to some extent isolated from the rest of the presidency.
Physical Aspects.—The Bombay Presidency consists of a long strip of land along the Indian Ocean from the south of the Punjab to the north of Mysore. The coast is rock-bound and difficult of access; and though it contains several bays forming fairweather ports for vessels engaged in the coasting trade, Bombay, Karachi-in-Sind, Marmagoa and Karwar alone have harbours sufficiently land-locked to protect shipping during the prevalence of the south-west monsoon. The coast-line is regular and little broken, save by the Gulfs of Cambay and Cutch, between which lies the peninsula of Kathiawar.
Speaking generally, a range of hills, known as the Western Ghats, runs down the coast, at places rising in splendid bluffs and precipices from the water’s edge, at others retreating inland, and leaving a flat fertile strip of 5 to 50 m. between their base and the sea. In the north of the Mountains. presidency on the right bank of the Indus, the Hala mountains, a continuation of the great Suleiman range, separate British India from the dominions of the khan of Kalat. Leaving Sind, and passing by the ridges of low sandhills,—the leading feature of the desert east of the Indus,—and the isolated hills of Cutch and Kathiawar, which form geologically the western extremity of the Aravalli range, the first extensive mountain range is that separating Gujarat from the states of central India. The rugged and mountainous country south of the Tapti forms the northern extremity of the Sahyadri or Western Ghats. This great range of hills, sometimes overhanging the ocean, and generally running parallel to it at a distance nowhere exceeding 50 m., with an average elevation of about 1800 ft., contains individual peaks rising to more than double that height. They stretch southwards for upwards of 500 m., with a breadth of 10 to 20 m. The western declivity is abrupt, the land at the base of the hills being but slightly raised above the level of the sea. As is usually the case with the trap formation, they descend to the plains in terraces with abrupt fronts. The landward slope is in many places very gentle, the crest of the range being sometimes but slightly raised above the level of the plateau of the Deccan. Their best-known elevation is Mahabaleshwar, 4500 ft. high, a fine plateau, 37 m. from Poona, covered with rich vegetation, and used by the Bombay government as its summer retreat and sanitarium. In the neighbourhood of the Sahyadri hills, particularly towards the northern extremity of the range, the country is rugged and broken, containing isolated peaks, masses of rock and spurs, which, running eastward, form watersheds for the great rivers of the Deccan. The Satpura hills separate the valley of the Tapti from the valley of the Nerbudda, and the district of Khandesh from the territories of Indore. The Satmala or Ajanta hills, which are rather the northern slope of the plateau than a distinct range of hills, separate Khandesh from the Nizam’s Dominions.
The more level parts of Bombay consist of five well-demarcated tracts—Sind, Gujarat, the Konkan, the Deccan, and the Carnatic. Sind, or the lower valley of the Indus, is very flat, with but scanty vegetation, and depending for productiveness entirely on irrigation. Gujarat, except on its northern Plains. parts, consists of rich, highly cultivated alluvial plains, watered by the Tapti and Nerbudda, but not much subject to inundation. The Konkan lies between the Western Ghats and the sea. It is a rugged and difficult country, intersected by creeks, and abounding in isolated peaks and detached ranges of hills. The plains of the Deccan and Khandesh are watered by large rivers, but as the rainfall is uncertain, they are generally, during the greater part of the year, bleak and devoid of vegetation. The Carnatic plain, or the country south of the river Kistna, consists of extensive tracts of black or cotton soil in a high state of cultivation.
The chief river of western India is the Indus, which enters the presidency from the north of Sind and flowing south in a tortuous course, falls into the Arabian Sea by several mouths, such as the Ghizri creek, Khudi creek, Pitiani creek, Sisa creek, Hajamro creek, Vatho creek, Mall creek, Wari Rivers. creek, Bhitiara creek, Sir creek and Khori creek. In the dry season the bed varies at different places from 480 to 1600 yds. The flood season begins in March and continues till September, the average depth of the river rising from 9 to 24 ft., and the velocity of the current increasing from 3 to 7 m. an hour. Next to the Indus comes the Nerbudda. Rising in the Central Provinces, and traversing the dominions of Holkar, the Nerbudda enters the presidency at the north-western extremity of the Khandesh district, flows eastward, and after a course of 700 m. from its source, falls into the Gulf of Cambay, forming near its mouth the alluvial plain of Broach, one of the richest districts of Bombay. For about 100 m. from the sea the Nerbudda is at all seasons navigable by small boats, and during the rains by vessels of from 30 to 50 tons burden. The Tapti enters the presidency a few miles south of the town of Burhanpur, a station on the Great Indian Peninsula railway, flows eastward through the district of Khandesh, the native state of Rewa Kantha and the district of Surat, and falls into the Gulf of Cambay, a few miles west of the town of Surat. The Tapti drains about 250 m. of country, and is, in a commercial point of view, the most useful of the Gujarat rivers. Besides these there are many minor streams. The Banas and the Saraswati take their rise in the Aravalli hills, and flowing eastward through the native state of Palanpur, fall into the Runn of Cutch. The Sabarmati and the Mahi rise in the Mahi Kantha hills, and flowing southwards, drain the districts of Northern Gujarat, and fall into the sea near the head of the Gulf of Cambay. The streams which, rising in the Sahyadri range, or Western Ghats, flow westward into the Arabian Sea, are of little importance. During the rains they are formidable torrents, but with the return of the fair weather they dwindle away, and during the hot season, with a few exceptions, they almost dry up. Clear and rapid as they descend the hills, on reaching the lowlands of the Konkan they become muddy and brackish creeks. The Kanarese rivers have a larger body of water and a more regular flow than the streams of the Konkan. One of them, the Sharawati, forcing its way through the western ridge of the Ghats, plunges from the high to the low country by a succession of falls, the principal of which is 800 ft. in height. The Sahyadri, or Western Ghats, also throw off to the eastward
