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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 19, p. 118.

118 NIMAR ZILA (6,094); and r,o65 villages. The land lying immediately in the valley of the Narbada is of high fertility, but the rest of the district is broken up by a succession of forest-covered ridges, which strike out from the Satpuras. In the sixteenth century these forests were noted for their herds of elephants. The tract in which this district lies has always been important historically. From the earliest days the great routes from the south to the north have traversed it. In the early Buddhist books two routes from the Deccan to Ujjam are mentioned, one passing along the western side of the district and crossing the Narbada opposite Mahis- sati, the modern Maheshwar, and the other on the west, which crossed at Chikalda and passed up northwards through Bagh in Gwalior State. During the Mughal supremacy also the main route from the Deccan to Agra and Delhi passed along much the same line as the eastern Buddhist route, crossing the river at the ford of Akbarpur, now Khal- ghat. The line of this road is still marked by the terminations -sarai (` resthouse') and -chauhi (`guardhouse') attached to village names. In the fastnesses of Nimar the aboriginal tribes who were retreating before the Aryan invaders found a last refuge, their representatives, the Bhils, Gonds, Kols, and Korkus, being to this day the principal inhabitants of the tract. It includes most of the ancient Prant Nimar, the country lying along the Narbada valley between 7o° and 77° E. In the third century A. v. the northern part was possessed by the Haihayas, who made Mahishmati (now Maheshwar) their capital. In the ninth century the Paramaras of Malwa held the country, and have left numerous traces of their rule in the Jain and other temples, now mostly ruined, which lie scattered throughout the tract, as at Un, Harsttd, Singhana, and Deola. The Muhammadans under Ala-ud-din first appeared in the thirteenth century, and from that time it became more or less subject to the rule of Delhi. From 1401 it was held by the independent Muhammadan kings of Mandu (see MAI..wA), till it fell to Bahadur Shah of Gujarat in 1531 and to Humaycin in 1534- It passed to Akbar with Malwa in 1562, and was included in the Subah of Malwa, to which tract, however, it does not belong topo- graphically, its territories being divided between the three sarkdrs of Bijagarh, Hindia, and Mandu. The greater part of the district lay in the Bijagarh sarhar, while the head-quarters were at the town of Jalal- abad, situated at the foot of the Bijagarh fort, of which the ruins are still standing. The fort was built, it is said, by a Gauli chief, Bija, of the same tribe as Asa of Asirgarh, in the thirteenth century. Under Aurangzeb, most of Nimar was included in the Subah of Aurangabad. The high state of prosperity reached in those days is proved by the ruins of numerous mosques, palaces, and tombs, now buried in jungle. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the Marathas entered the