CHAPTER 2
Geography of Bīkaner.
Extent, Population, Soil, Tibas or Sandhills.
Population.
| Chief Towns. | Number of Houses. | ||
| Bikaner | 12,000 | ||
| Nohar | 2,500 | ||
| Bahaduran | 2,500 | ||
| Reni | 1,500 | ||
| Rajgarh | 3,000 | ||
| Churu | 3,000 | [198] | |
| Mahajan | 800 | ||
| Jethpur | 1,000 | ||
| Bidesar | 500 | ||
| Ratangarh | 1,000 | ||
| Desmukh | 1,000 | ||
| Senthal | 50 | ||
| 28,850 | |||
| 100 villages, each having 200 houses | 20,000 | ||
| 100 ” ” 150 ” | 15,000 | ||
| 200 ” ” 100 ” | 20,000 | ||
| 800 hamlets ” 30 each | 24,000 | ||
| Total number of houses | 107,850 | ||
Allowing five souls to each house, we have a total of 539,250 souls, giving an average of twenty-five to the square mile, which I cannot think exaggerated, and making the desert regions depending on Bikaner equal, in the density of population, the highlands of Scotland.[[2]]
Of this population, full three-fourths are the aboriginal Jats; the rest are their conquerors, descendants of Bika, including the Saraswat Brahmans,[[3]] Charans, Bards, and a few of the debased classes, whose numbers, conjointly, are not one-tenth of the Rajputs.
Jats.
Sarsūt, Saraswat Brāhman.—Sarsut (properly Sarasvati) Brahmans are found in considerable numbers throughout this tract. They aver that they were masters of the country prior to the Jat colonists. They are a peaceable, industrious race, and without a single prejudice of ‘the order’; they eat meat, smoke tobacco, cultivate the soil, and trade even in the sacred kine, notwithstanding their descent from Sringi Rishi, son of Brahma.
Charans.
Mālis, Nāis.—Malis, Nais, gardeners and barbers, are important members of every Rajput family, and to be found in all the villages, of which they are invariably the cooks.
Chuhras, Thoris.—Chuhras, Thoris, are actually castes of robbers:[[4]] the former, from the Lakhi Jungle; the latter, from Mewar. Most of the chieftains have a few in their pay, entertained for the most desperate services. The Bahaduran chief has expelled all his Rajputs, and retains only Chuhras and Thoris. The Chuhras are highly esteemed for fidelity, and the barriers and portals throughout this tract are in their custody. They enjoy a very singular perquisite, which would go far to prove their being the aborigines of the country; namely, a fee of four copper coins on every dead subject, when the funeral ceremonies are over.
Rājputs.
Face of the Country.
Products of the Desert.
Besides bajra we may mention moth and til;[[5]] the former a useful pulse both for men and cattle; the other the oil-plant, used both for culinary purposes and burning. Wheat, gram, and barley are produced in the favoured spots described, but in these are enumerated the staple products of Bikaner.
Cotton is grown in the tracts favourable for wheat.[[6]] The plant is said to be septennial, even decennial, in these regions. As soon as the cotton is gathered, the shoots are all cut off, and the root alone left. Each succeeding year, the plant increases in strength, and at length attains a size unknown where it is more abundantly cultivated.
Nature has bountifully supplied many spontaneous vegetable products for the use of man, and excellent pasture for cattle. Guar, Kachri, Kakri, all of the cucurbitaceous family, and water-melons of a gigantic size, are produced in great plenty.[[7]] The latter is most valuable; for being cut in slices and dried in the sun, it is stored up [201] for future use when vegetables are scarce, or in times of famine, on which they always calculate. It is also an article of commerce, and much admired even where vegetables are more abundant. The copious mucilage of the dried melon is extremely nourishing; and deeming it valuable as an anti-scorbutic in sea voyages, the Author sent some of it to Calcutta many years ago for experiment.[[8]] Our Indian ships would find no difficulty in obtaining a plentiful supply of this article, as it can be cultivated to any extent, and thus be made to confer a double benefit on our seamen and the inhabitants of those desert regions. The superior magnitude of the water-melons of the desert over those of interior India gives rise to much exaggeration, and it has been gravely asserted by travellers in the sand tibas,[[9]] where they are most abundant, that the mucilage of one is sufficient to allay the thirst both of a horse and his rider.
In these arid regions, where they depend entirely on the heavens for water, and where they calculate on a famine every seventh year, nothing that can administer to the wants of man is lost. The seeds of the wild grasses, as the bharut, baru, harara, sawan, are collected, and, mixed with bajra-flour, enter much into the food of the poorer classes. They also store up great quantities of the wild ber, khair, and karel berries; and the long pods of the khejra, astringent and bitter as they are, are dried and formed into a flour. Nothing is lost in these regions which can be converted into food.
Trees.
The ak, a species of euphorbia, known in Hindustan as the madar, grows to an immense height and strength in the desert; from its fibres they make the ropes in general use throughout these regions, and they are reckoned superior, both in substance and durability, to those formed of munj (hemp), which is however cultivated in the lands of the Bidawats.
Their agricultural implements are simple and suited to the soil. The plough is one [202] of single yoke, either for the camel or ox: that with double yoke being seldom required, or chiefly by the Malis (gardeners), when the soil is of some consistence. The drill is invariably used, and the grains are dropped singly into the ground, at some distance from each other, and each sends forth a dozen to twenty stalks. A bundle of bushes forms their harrow. The grain is trodden out by oxen; and the moth (pulse), which is even more productive than the bajra, by camels.
Water.—This indispensable element is at an immense distance from the surface throughout the Indian desert, which, in this respect, as well as many others, differs very materially from that portion of the great African Desert in the same latitudes. Water at twenty feet, as found at Mourzook by Captain Lyon, is here unheard of, and the degree of cold experienced by him at Zuela, on the winter solstice, would have “burnt up” every natural and cultivated production of our Hindu Sahara. Captain Lyon describes the thermometer in lat. 26°, within 2° of zero of Reaumur. Majors Denham and Clapperton never mark it under 40° of Fahrenheit, and mention ice, which I never saw but once, the thermometer being 28°; and then not only the mouths of our mashaks, or ‘water-skins,’ were frozen, but a small pond, protected from the wind (I heard, for I saw it not), exhibited a very thin pellicle of ice. When at 30° the cold was deemed intense by the inhabitants of Maru in the tracts limiting the desert, and the useful ak, and other shrubs, were scorched and withered; and in north lat. 25°, the thermometer being 28°, desolation and woe spread throughout the land. To use their own phrase, the crops of gram and other pulses were completely “burnt up, as if scorched by the lightnings of heaven”; while the sun’s meridian heat would raise it 50° more, or up to 80°, a degree of variability at least not recorded by Captain Lyon.
At Deshnokh,[[10]] near the capital, the wells are more than two hundred cubits, or three hundred feet, in depth; and it is rare that water fit for man is found at a less distance from the surface than sixty, in the tracts decidedly termed thal, or ‘desert’: though some of the flats, or oases, such as that of Mohila, are exceptions, and abundance of brackish water, fit for cattle, is found throughout at half this depth, or about thirty feet. All the wells are lined with basket-work made of phog twigs, and the water is generally drawn up by hand-lines [203].[[11]]
Sar, or ‘Salt Lakes.’—There are a few salt lakes, which, throughout the whole of the Indian desert, are termed sar, though none are of the same consequence as those of Marwar. The largest is at the town of Sar,[[12]] so named after the lake, which is about six miles in circumference. There is another at Chhapar about two miles in length, and although each of them frequently contains a depth of four feet of water, this entirely evaporates in the hot winds, leaving a thick sheet of saline incrustation. The salt of both is deemed of inferior quality to that of the more southerly lakes.
Physiography of the Country.
Mineral Productions.
An unctuous clay is excavated from a pit, near Kolait, in large quantities, and exported as an article of commerce, besides adding fifteen hundred rupees annually to the treasury. It is used chiefly to free the skin and hair from impurities, and the Cutchi ladies are said to eat it to improve their complexions.[[13]]
Animal Productions.
Commerce and Manufactures.
Woollens.
From the milk of the sheep and goats as well as kine, ghi or ‘clarified butter’ is made, and forms an important article of trade.
Manufactures in Iron.
Coarse cotton cloths, for internal consumption, are made in considerable quantities.
Fairs.
Government Revenues.
The following are the items of the revenue: (1) Khalisa, or fiscal revenue; (2) Dhuan; (3) Anga; (4) Town and transit duties; (5) Paseti, or ‘plough-tax’; (6) Malba.
Khālisa Lands.
Hearth-Tax.
Poll-Tax.
4. Sāīr, or ‘imposts.’ This branch is subject to much fluctuation, and has diminished greatly since the reign of Surat Singh. The duties levied in the capital alone formerly exceeded what is collected throughout the whole of his dominions; being once estimated at above two lakhs, and now under one. Of this amount, half is collected at Rajgarh, the chief commercial mart of Bikaner. The dread of the Rahats, who have cut off the communications with the Panjab, and the want of principle within, deter merchants from visiting this State, and the caravans from Multan, Bahawalpur, and Shikarpur, which passed through Bikaner to the eastern States, have nearly abandoned the route. The only duties of which he is certain are those on grain, of four rupees on every hundred maunds sold or exported, and which, according to the average sale price of these regions, may be about two per cent.
Paseti.
Malba.
Recapitulation
| 1. Khalisa, or fisc[[23]] | Rs. 100,000 |
| 2. Dhuan | 100,000 |
| 3. Anga | 200,000 |
| 4. Sair, imposts[[24]] | 75,000 |
| 5. Paseti, plough-tax | 125,000 |
| 6. Malba, land-tax | 50,000 |
| Total | 650,000 |
Besides this, the fullest amount arising to the prince from annual taxation, there are other items which occasionally replenish the treasure of Surat Singh.
Datoi.
In addition to these specific expedients, there are many arbitrary methods of increasing the “ways and means” to satisfy the necessities or avarice of the present ruler, and [208] a train of dependent harpies, who prey upon the cultivating peasantry, or industrious trader. By such shifts, Surat Singh has been known to double his fixed revenue.
Dand, Khushhali.
The term dand is coeval with Hindu legislation. The bard Chand describes it, and the chronicler of the life of the great Siddhraj of Anhilwara, “who expelled the seven Daddas,” or ‘great evils,’ whose initial letter was d, enumerates dand as one of them, and places it with the Dholis and Dakins, or minstrels and witches, giving it precedence amongst the seven plagues which his ancestors and tyrant custom had inflicted on the subject. Unhappily, there is no Siddhraj to legislate for Rajputana; and were there fourteen Daddas by which Surat Singh could swell his budget, he would retain them all for the oppression of the impoverished Jats, who, if they could, would be happy to expel the letter S from amongst them. But it is from the chieftain, the merchant, and the banker that the chief sums are realized; though indirectly the poor peasant contributes his share. There are fourteen collectors of dand,[[27]] one to every chira or division, and these are furnished with arbitrary schedules according to the circumstances, actual or supposed, of each individual. So unlimited are these exactions, that the chief of Gandeli for two years offered the collector of his quarter ten thousand rupees if he would guarantee him against any further demand during even twelve months; and being refused, he turned the collector out, shut the gates of his castle, and boldly bid his master defiance.
One of his expedients to levy a khushhali, or ‘benevolence,’ is worth relating: it was on the termination of his expedition against Bhatner, which added this celebrated desert and castle to his territory, and in which he was attended by the entire feudal army of Bikaner. On his return, “flushed with conquest,” he demanded from each house throughout his dominions the sum of ten rupees to cover the expenses of the war. If the tyrant-ridden subjects of Surat Singh thus rejoice in his successes, how must they feel for his defeats! To them both are alike ominous, when every [209] artifice is welcomed, every villainy practised, to impoverish them. Oppression is at its height, and must work out its own cure.
Feudal Levies.
The household troops consist of a battalion of foreign infantry, of five hundred men with five guns, and three squadrons of horse, about two hundred and fifty in number; all under foreign leaders. This is independent of the garrison of the capital, whose commandant is a Rajput of the Parihar tribe, who has twenty-five villages assigned for the payment of his troops.[[28]]
Schedule exhibiting the Fiefs of Bikaner.
| Names of Chieftains. | Clans. | Places of Abode. | Revenue. | Retainers: | Remarks. | |||||
| Foot. | Horse. | |||||||||
| Behri Sal | Bika | Mahajan | 40,000 | 5,000 | 100 | One hundred and forty villages, attached to this fief, settled on the heir of Raja Nunkaran, who consequently forfeited the gaddi. The first of the chiefs of Bikaner. | ||||
| Abhai Singh | Benirot | Bhukarka | 25,000 | 5,000 | 200 | |||||
| Anup Singh | Bika | Jasana | 5,000 | 400 | 40 | |||||
| Pem Singh | Do. | Bai | 5,000 | 400 | 25 | |||||
| Chain Singh | Benirot | Sawa | 20,000 | 2,000 | 300 | |||||
| Himmat Singh | Rawat | Rawatsar | 20,000 | 2,000 | 300 | |||||
| Sheo Singh | Benirot | Churu | 25,000 | 2,000 | 200 | |||||
| Ummed Singh |  | Bidawat |  | Bidesar | | 50,000 | 10,000 | 2,000 | One hundred and forty kothri (families,lit. chambers) of this class. | |
| Jeth Singh | Sondwa | |||||||||
| Bahadur Singh |  | Narnot |  | Bidesar | | 40,000 | 4,000 | 500 | ||
| Suraj Mall | Tendesar | |||||||||
| Guman Singh | Katar | |||||||||
| Atai Singh | Kachor | |||||||||
| Sher Singh | Narnot | Nimbaj | 5,000 | 500 | 125 | |||||
| Devi Singh | | Narnot | | Sidmukh | | 20,000 | 5,000 | 400 | ||
| Ummed Singh | Karipura | |||||||||
| Surthan Singh | Ajitpura | |||||||||
| Karnidhan | Beasar | |||||||||
| Surthan Singh | Kachhwaha | Nainawas | 4,000 | 150 | 30 | | These two fiefs are held by foreign nobles of thehouse of Amber, and the ancient Pramara (vulg. Panwar). | |||
| Padam Singh | Panwar | Jethsisar | 5,000 | 200 | 100 | |||||
| Kishan Singh | Bika | Hayadesar | 5,000 | 200 | 50 | |||||
| Rao Singh | Bhatti | Pugal[[29]] | 6,000 | 1,500 | 40 | The fief of Pugal was wrested from the Bhattis ofJaisalmer. | ||||
| Sultan Singh | Do. | Rajasar | 1,500 | 200 | 50 | |||||
| Laktir Singh | Do. | Raner | 2,000 | 400 | 75 | |||||
| Karnai Singh | Do. | Satasar | 1,100 | 200 | 9 | |||||
| Bhum Singh | Do. | Chakara | 1,500 | 60 | 4 | |||||
| Four Chieftains,[[30]] viz. | ||||||||||
| 1. Bhoni Singh | Bhatti | Bichnok | 1,500 | 60 | 6 | |||||
| 2. Zalim Singh | Do. | Gariala | 1,100 | 40 | 4 | |||||
| 3. Sardar Singh | Do. | Surjara | 800 | 30 | 2 | |||||
| 4. Khet Singh | Do. | Randisar | 600 | 32 | 2 | |||||
| Chand Singh | Karamsot | Nokha | 11,000 | 1,500 | 500 |  | Twenty-seven villages dependent on this familyfrom Jodhpur, and settled here eleven years. | |||
| Satidan | Rupawat | Badila | 5,000 | 200 | 25 | |||||
| Bhum Singh | Bhatti | Janglu | 2,500 | 400 | 9 | |||||
| Ketsi | Do. | Jaminsar | 15,000 | 500 | 150 | Twenty-seven villages. | ||||
| Isari Singh | Mandla | Sarunda | 11,000 | 2,000 | 150 | |||||
| Padam Singh | Bhatti | Kudsu | 1,500 | 60 | 4 | |||||
| Kalyan Singh | Do. | Nainea | 1,000 | 40 | 2 | |||||
| Total | 332,100 | 44,072 | 5,402 | [210] | ||||||
If ever the whole feudal array of Bikaner amounted to this, it would assuredly be found difficult now, were the ban proclaimed, to assemble one-fourth of this number [211].
Foreign Troops
| Foot. | Horse. | Guns. | |
| Sultan Khan | — | 200 | — |
| Anokha Singh, Sikh | — | 250 | — |
| Budh Singh Dewara | — | 200 | — |
| Durjan Singh’s Battalion | 700 | 4 | 4 |
| Ganga Singh’s Battalion | 1000 | 25 | 6 |
| Total Foreigners | 1700 | 679 | 10 |
| Park | — | — | 21 |
| 1700 | 679 | 31 |
[1]. [Bīkaner is bounded on N. and W. by Bahāwalpur; S.W. by Jaisalmer; S. by Mārwār; S.E. by Shaikhāwati of Jaipur; E. by Lohāru and Hissār; total area 23,311 square miles (IGI, viii. 202).]
[2]. [In 1911 the population was 573,501, 4·79 souls per house.]
[3]. [For the Saraswat or Sarsūt Brāhmans see Rose, Glossary, ii. 122 ff.]
[4]. [The Chuhras are the criminal branch of the Panjāb sweepers (Rose, Glossary, ii. 182 ff.). The Thoris are said to be connected with the Aheris, a well-known criminal tribe (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 194). In Bahāwalpur they resemble the Dhedh outcastes, who eat the flesh of dead animals (Malik Muhammad Din, Gazetteer, i. 155).]
[5]. [Moth, phaseolus aconitifolius; til, sesamum indicum.]
[6]. [Only a few acres of cotton are now grown.]
[7]. [Guār, dolichos biflorus; water-melons are known as matīra; kakri, a coarse variety of melon.]
[8]. I sent specimens to Mr. Moorcroft so far back as 1813, but never learned the result.—See Article “On the Preservation of Food,” Edin. Review, No. 45, p. 115.
[9]. Mr. Barrow, in his valuable work on Southern Africa, describes the water-melon as self-sown and abundant.
[10]. [Twenty miles S. of Bīkaner city, containing a temple of Karniji, the guardian deity of the Mahārāja’s family.]
[11]. Water is sold, in all the large towns, by the Malis, or ‘gardeners,’ who have the monopoly of this article. Most families have large cisterns or reservoirs, called tankas, which are filled in the rainy season. They are of masonry, with a small trap-door at the top, made to exclude the external air, and having a lock and key affixed. Some large tankas are established for the community, and I understand this water keeps sweet for eight and twelve months’ consumption. [The proper form of the word seems to be tānkh, tānkha (Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 2nd ed. 898 f.; H. Beveridge, The Academy, xlvi. 174).]
[12]. [About 40 miles N.W. of Bīkaner city. The chief salt lakes are at Chhāpar and Lūnkaransar (Erskine iii. A. 350).]
[13]. [Multāni mitti, fuller’s earth, found near Madh in the S. of the State, and sometimes eaten (Erskine iii. A. 251; Watt, Econ. Prod. 329 f.).]
[14]. One thousand rupees have been given for one; one hundred is the average value.
[15]. [The camel thorn, Alhagi maurorum.]
[16]. [N.W. of Bīkaner city, near the Panjāb frontier.]
[17]. [These towns are respectively 25 miles S.W. and 19 miles S.W. of Bīkaner city.]
[18]. [The tract S. of the Sutlej, having its E. limits at Ludhiāna and Sunām; to the S. of it lay the Bhāti desert (Manucci i. 320, iv. 426). Its importance is shown by Aurangzeb appointing Muhammad Muizzu-d-dīn, eldest son of Sultān Muazzam, Faujdār of the Lākhi Jungle, in A.D. 1706 (Bilimoria, Letters of Aurangzeb, 75.)[75.)]]
[19]. [At present the normal revenue of the State is about 32 lakhs of rupees, or £213,000.]
[20]. [Pānch, from which the tax derives its name.]
[21]. [Malba properly means ‘sweepings, rubbish,’ then miscellaneous revenue.]
[22]. Mal is the term for land which has no irrigation but from the heavens.
[23].
| Nohar district | 84 | villages | Revenue | Rs. 100,000 |
| Reni | 24 | ” | ” | 10,000 |
| Rania | 44 | ” | ” | 20,000 |
| Jaloli | 1 | ” | ” | 5,000 |
| Total original Fiscal Lands | 135,000 | |||
since Rajgarh, Churu, and other places recovered.
[24]. Impost Duties in old times, namely:
| Town of | Nunkaran | Rs. 2,000 |
| Rajgarh | 10,000 | |
| Shaikhsar | 5,000 | |
| Capital—Bīkaner | 75,000 | |
| From Churu and other towns | 5,000 | |
| 137,000 | ||
[25]. [Dānt, dānta, ‘a tooth,’ then ‘a ploughshare.’]
[26]. Khush means ‘happiness, pleasure, volition’; ap ki khushi, ‘at your pleasure.’ [hāl = ‘circumstances.’]
[27]. This was written in 1813.
[28]. [The State now supports for Imperial service the well-known Camel Corps, called the Ganga Risāla.]
[29]. Pugal Patta.
[30]. These chiefs are called Sardars of Khari Patta, one of the original conquests of the founder, Bika.