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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 15, p. 28.

2 8 KARA ULI .STATR mentioned, and Bahadurpur, 8 miles south of the capital; both are now deserted and in ruins. The number of towns and villages in the State is 437, and the population at each of the three enumerations was : (1881) 148,670, (1891) 156,587, and (1go1) 156,786. The smallness Population. of the increase during the last decade is ascribed to famines in 1897 and 1899. The territory is divided into five tahsils namely, Karauli (or Sadr), Jirota, Machilpur, Mandrael, and Utgir, the head-quarters of each being at the place from which it is named, except in the case of Jirota and Utgir, the head-quarters of which are at Sapotra and Karanpur respectively. The only town in the State is the capital, a municipality. The following table gives the chief statistics of population in 1go1 :-- Percentage of Number of Eo- Number of variation in persons able to 7àhsil. ta Population. population be. read and ro tween 18gt write. and rgo1. Karauli 128 67,581 + 10•ô 2,546 Jirota . 8o 12,646 + 3.2 542 Mâchilpur 84 24,015 184 Mandrael 58 1g,665 -L -15.0 227 Utgir 86 12,879 - 1 9-0 107 State total 1 436 156,786 I + 0.1 3,6o6 Nearly 94 per cent. of the total are Hindus, the worship of Vishnu under the name of Krishna being the prevalent form of religion, and more than 5 per cent. are Muhammadans. The languages mainly spoken are dialects of Western Hindi, including Dang! and Ddngbhang. The principal tribe is the Minds, who number 32,000, or more than 2o per cent. of the population, and are the leading agriculturists of the country; next come the Chamars (23,000), who, besides working in leather, assist in agriculture. Brahmans number 2o,ooo, and are mostly petty traders, village money-lenders, and cultivators ; while the Gfijars (16,ooo), formerly noted cattle-lifters, are now very fair agriculturists. Agricultural conditions vary in different parts of the State. In the highlands of the Ddng the soil is clayey, and the slopes of the hills are Agriculture. embanked into successive steps or terraces, only a few yards broad ; here rice is grown abundantly, and after it has been reaped barley or gram is sometimes sown. The fields are irrigated from tanks excavated on the tops of the hills. The lowlands of this tract are surrounded by hills on two or three sides and are called antri. The soil is of two kinds : the first is composed of earth and sand washed down the hill-sides by the rain-