Theocritus in hexameters was published in 1824. His versions of the Oedipus of Sophocles and of the Iphigenia of Euripides were rewarded by the Hungarian Academy, of which in 1838 he was elected honorary member. In 1832 he was appointed abbot of the wealthy Benedictine house at Bakonybél, a village in the county of Veszprém. There he built an asylum for 150 children, and founded a school of harmony and singing. He died on the 1st of September 1839.
GWADAR, a port on the Makran coast of Baluchistan, about
290 m. W. of Karachi. Pop. (1903), 4350. In the last half of the
18th century it was handed over by the khan of Kalat to the
sultan of Muscat, who still exercises sovereignty over the port,
together with about 300 sq. m. of the adjoining country. It is
a place of call for the steamers of the British India Navigation
Company.
GWALIOR, a native state of India, in the Central India
agency, by far the largest of the numerous principalities comprised
in that area. It is the dominion of the Sindhia family.
The state consists of two well-defined parts which may roughly
be called the northern and the southern. The former is a compact
mass of territory, bounded N. and N.W. by the Chambal river,
which separates it from the British districts of Agra and
Etawah, and the native states of Dholpur, Karauli and Jaipur
of Rajputana; E. by the British districts of Jalaun, Jhansi,
Lalitpur and Saugor; S. by the states of Bhopal, Tonk, Khilchipur
and Rajgarh; and W. by those of Jhalawar, Tonk and
Kotah of Rajputana. The southern, or Malwa, portion is made
up of detached or semi-detached districts, between which are
interposed parts of other states, which again are mixed up with
each other in bewildering intricacy. The two portions together
have a total area of 25,041 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 2,933,001, showing
a decrease of 13% in the decade.
The state may be naturally divided into plain, plateau and hilly country. The plain country extends from the Chambal river in the extreme southwards for about 80 m., with a maximum width from east to west of about 120 m. This plain, though broken in its southern portion by low hills, has generally an elevation of only a few hundred feet above sea-level. In the summer season the climate is very hot, the shade temperature rising frequently to 112° F., but in the winter months (from November to February inclusive) it is usually temperate and for short periods extremely cold. The average rainfall is 30 in., but the period 1891–1901 was a decade of low rainfall, and distress was caused by famine. South of this tract there is a gradual ascent to the Central India plateau, and at Sipri the general level is 1500 ft. above the sea. On this plateau lies the remainder of the state, with the exception of the small district of Amjhera in the extreme south. The elevation of this region gives it a moderate climate during the summer as compared with the plain country, while the winter is warmer and more equable. The average rainfall is 28 in. The remaining portion of the state, classed as hilly, comprises only the small district of Amjhera. This is known as the Bhil country, and lies among the Vindhya mountains with a mean elevation of about 1800 ft. The rainfall averages 23 in. In the two years 1899 and 1900 the monsoon was very weak, the result being a severe famine which caused great mortality among the Bhil population. Of these three natural divisions the plateau possesses the most fertile soil, generally of the kind known as “black cotton,” but the low-lying plain has the densest population. The state is watered by numerous rivers. The Nerbudda, flowing west, forms the southern boundary. The greater part of the drainage is discharged into the Chambal, which forms the north-western and northern and eastern boundary. The Sind, with its tributaries the Kuwari, Asar and Sankh, flows through the northern division. The chief products are wheat, millets, pulses of various kinds, maize, rice, linseed and other oil-seeds; poppy, yielding the Malwa opium; sugar-cane, cotton, tobacco, indigo, garlic, turmeric and ginger. About 60% of the population are employed in agricultural and only 15% in industrial occupations, the great majority of the latter being home workers. There is a leather-factory at Morar; cotton-presses at Morena, Baghana and Ujjain; ginning factories at Agar, Nalkhera, Shajapur and Sonkach; and a cotton-mill at Ujjain. The cotton industry alone shows possibilities of considerable development, there being 55,000 persons engaged in it at the time of the census of 1901.
The population is composed of many elements, among which Brahmans and Rajputs are specially numerous. The prevailing religion is Hinduism, 84% of the people being Hindus and only 6% Mahommedans. The revenue of the state is about one million sterling; and large reserves have been accumulated, from which two millions were lent to the government of India in 1887, and later on another million for the construction of the Gwalior-Agra and Indore-Neemuch railways. The railways undertaken by the state are: (1) from Bina on the Indian Midland to Goona; (2) an extension of this line to Baran, opened in 1899; (3) from Bhopal to Ujjain; (4) two light railways, from Gwalior to Sipri and Gwalior to Bhind, which were opened by the viceroy in November 1899. On the same occasion the viceroy opened the Victoria College, founded to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee; and the Memorial Hospital, built in memory of the maharaja’s father. British currency has been introduced instead of Chandori rupees, which were much depreciated. The state maintains three regiments of Imperial Service cavalry, two battalions of infantry and a transport corps.
History.—The Sindhia family, the rulers of the Gwalior state, belong to the Mahratta nation and originally came from the neighbourhood of Poona. Their first appearance in Central India was early in the 18th century in the person of Ranoji (d. 1745), a scion of an impoverished branch of the family, who began his career as the peshwa’s slipper-carrier and rose by his military abilities to be commander of his bodyguard. In 1726, together with Malhar Rao Holkar, the founder of the house of Indore, he was authorized by the peshwa to collect tribute (chauth) in the Malwa districts. He established his headquarters at Ujjain, which thus became the first capital of Sindhia’s dominions.
Ranoji’s son and successor, Jayapa Sindhia, was killed at Nagaur in 1759, and was in his turn succeeded by his son Jankoji Sindhia. But the real founder of the state of Gwalior was Mahadji Sindhia, a natural son of Ranoji, who, after narrowly escaping with his life from the terrible slaughter of Panipat in 1761 (when Jankoji was killed), obtained with some difficulty from the peshwa a re-grant of his father’s possessions in Central India (1769). During the struggle which followed the death of Madhu Rao Peshwa in 1772 Mahadji seized every occasion for extending his power and possessions. In 1775, however, when Raghuba Peshwa threw himself on the protection of the British, the reverses which Mahadji encountered at their hands—Gwalior being taken by Major Popham in 1780—opened his eyes to their power. By the treaty of Salbai (1782) it was agreed that Mahadji should withdraw to Ujjain, and the British retire north of the Jumna. Mahadji, who undertook to open negotiations with the other belligerents, was recognized as an independent ruler, and a British resident was established at his court. Mahadji, aided by the British policy of neutrality, now set to work to establish his supremacy over Hindustan proper. Realizing the superiority of European methods of warfare, he availed himself of the services of a Savoyard soldier of fortune, Benoît de Boigne, whose genius for military organization and command in the field was mainly instrumental in establishing the Mahratta power. Mahadji’s disciplined troops made him invincible. In 1785 he re-established Shah Alam on the imperial throne at Delhi, and as his reward obtained for the peshwa the title of vakil-ul-mutlak or vicegerent of the empire, contenting himself with that of his deputy. In 1788 he took advantage of the cruelties practised by Ghulam Kadir on Shah Alam, to occupy Delhi, where he established himself as the protector of the aged emperor. Though nominally a deputy of the peshwa he was now ruler of a vast territory, including the greater part of Central India and Hindustan proper, while his lieutenants exacted tribute from the chiefs of Rajputana. There can be no doubt that he looked with apprehension on the growing power of
