GUNDWANA, a large province of Hindustan, in the Deccan, extending from the 18th to the 25th degree of north latitude. On the north it is bounded by the provinces of Allahabad and Bahar; on the south by Berar, Hyderabad, and Orissa; on the east by Bahar and Orissa; and on the west by Allahabad, Malwah, Khandesh, Berar, and Hyderabad. It is estimated to be four hundred miles in length, by two hundred and eighty in average breadth. Gundwana, in its most extensive sense, includes all that part of India within the above-mentioned boundaries, which remained unconquered by the Mohammedans up to the reign of Aurungzebe. But Gundwana proper is limited to four districts, named Gurrah-Mundela, Choteesgur, Nagpore, and Chandah, and it stretches south along the east side of the Wurda and Godavery, to within a hundred miles of the mouth of the latter. The greater part of this province is a mountainous, unhealthy, and ill-watered country, covered with jungle, and thinly inhabited; and to its poverty and other bad qualities its indegeneracy may be ascribed. A continued chain of moderately elevated hills extends from the southern frontier of Bengal almost to the Godavery, and by these the eastern was formerly separated from the western portion of the Nagpore dominions. This province contains the sources of the Nerbudda and the Soane, and is bounded by the Wurda and Godavery; but a want of water is still the general defect, the streams by which it is intersected, namely, the Mahanuddy, Caroon, Hatsoo, and Silair, being inconsiderable, and not navigable within its limits. The Goands, or the hill tribes, who took refuge in the mountains and fastnesses from the invaders of the country, are the original inhabitants of the country, and still retain all their primeval habits of barbarism. The country which they inhabit is a mere wilderness, its inhabitants scarcely rising above the level of beasts. Their ha-
bits are loose and disorderly, and they frequently descend from the mountains which they inhabit to plunder the plains below, from which they were originally driven. In the course of the last century they have acquired an increasing appetite for salt and sugar, and the desire to procure these articles has operated as a stimulus to their industry, and tended more than any other circumstance to promote civilization amongst them. These Goands are Hindus of the Brahminical sect; but they retain many of their impure customs, and abstain from no flesh except that of the ox, cow, and bull. The more fertile tracts of Gundwana were subdued at an early period by the Bhoonsla Mahrattas, who claimed as paramount over the whole. The inhabitants were rendered nominally tributary; but it was found impossible to collect any revenue from them without a detachment, so that in fact the collection of the revenue was rather like a plundering expedition, the cost of which always exceeded the profit. During the war against the Pindarees in 1818, when the British troops invaded the territories of Appa Saheb, the rajah of Nagpore, their operations were greatly facilitated by the insurrection of the hill tribes, who occupied the passes into the Nagpore territories. For a long series of years it was the policy of the rajah of this territory, a descendant of Sevajee, to interfere as little as possible with the neighbouring powers. At length, in 1803, Ragojee Bhoonsla was induced, in an evil hour for himself, to depart from this system of neutrality, and to join Scindia in a confederacy against the British. He was soon reduced, however, by the defeats which the confederates sustained at Assye and Argau, to sue for peace, as the price of which he ceded a large portion of his dominions to the conquerors, namely, the province of Cuttack, including the pergunnah and port of Balasore. After the death of this rajah, whose sole object seemed to be to amass treasure, and who, for this purpose, laid the country under heavy contributions, and even joined with the Pindaree plunderers, the throne, contested by various competitors, was at last secured by Appa Saheb, his nephew, who, in the war against the Pindarees, joined the coalition against the British power, and was involved in ruin along with his other allies. A treaty of peace was concluded with him, which he violated; and he was finally deposed in 1818, and the grandson of the late rajah put in his stead. His dominions were at the same time placed under the superintendence of the British.