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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 12, p. 365.

HI STOPi Y 365 n the low-lying lands of the Chenab, where they do a great deal ,f damage, The climate is quite bearable, even in the hot season, owing to the iearness of the hills. The health of the people is unusually°good; but nalaria prevails along the Jhelum and Chenab in the autumn months, nd small-pox along the borders of Kashmir, whence it is generally sported. Plague entered the District in 1902. The village of /Ialkowal was in the same year the scene of an unfortunate accident rhereby 19 villagers who had been inoculated against plague died ,f tetanus. The rainfall is abundant, and the country people have a proverb hat `rain is always to be had for the asking.' It rapidly decreases rith the distance from the Himalayas and the Pabbi range, the average nnual fall varying from 28 inches at Kharian to 2o at Phalia. GUJRAT Town itself is a place of some antiquity, and the District bounds in ancient sites, MONG being the most important. The district formed part of the kingdom of Porus, who History. ,as defeated by Alexander, probably in the Karri lain beyond the Jammu border, in July, 326 B.C. ; but four years later was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya in the national rising which Wok place on the death of Alexander. It remained under the Mauryas ntil shortly after the death of Asoka in 231, and about forty years later ame under the sway of Demetrius the Graeco-Bactrian. The over- 'lrow of the Bactrians by the Parthians in the latter half of the second entury brought another change of rulers, and the coins of the Indo- 'arthian Mattes (c. 120 B. c.), who is known to local tradition as Raja toga, have been found at Mong. At the end of the first century A. D., ie whole of the Punjab was conquered by the Yueh-chi. For several undred years nothing is known of the history of the District, except eat between 455 and 540 it must have been exposed to the ravages f the White Huns. Dr. Stein holds that the District formed part f the kingdom of Gurjjara, which, according to the Râjatarangini, was evaded between A. n. 883 and 902 by Sankara Varman of Kashmir, ho defeated its king Alakhana. This may be the Ali Khan to whom -adition ascribed the refounding of GUJRAT. But authentic history Dmmences only in the Lodi period, when Bahlolpur, 23 miles north- 1st of Gujrât, was founded in the reign of Bahlol (1451-89). Khwds :has, governor of Rohtas under Sher Shah Suri, founded Khwaspur ear Gujrat. The settlement of the tract was completed by Akbar, ho built a fort and compelled the Gűjars, a pastoral tribe given to [under, to settle in it. The tract was then named Gujrat and formed ito a separate district. Revenue records have been preserved in the ,milies of the hereditary registrars (hdnungos), and these exhibit Gujrat the capital of a district containing 2,592 villages, paying a revenue