form part of the “affair of the diamond necklace” This story is disentangled elsewhere (see Diamond Necklace), and diverging views are still taken of it. Rohan certainly was led to believe that his attentions to the queen were welcomed, and that his arrangement by which she received the famous necklace was approved. He was the dupe of others, and at the trial in 1786 before the parlement his acquittal was received with universal enthusiasm, and regarded as a victory over the court and the unpopular queen. He was deprived, however, of his office as grand almoner and exiled to his abbey of Chaise-Dieu. He was soon allowed to return to Strassburg, and his popularity was shown by his election in 1789 to the states-general by the clergy of the bailliages of Haguenau and Weissenburg. He at first declined to sit, but the states-general, when it became the national assembly, insisted on validating his election. But as a prince of the church in January 1791 he refused to take the oath to the constitution, and went to Ettenheim, in the German part of his diocese. In exile his character improved, and he spent what wealth remained to him in providing for the poor clergy of his diocese who had been obliged to leave France; and in 1801 he resigned his nominal rank as archbishop of Strassburg. On the 17th of February 1803 he died at Ettenheirn.
See the Mémoires of his secretary, the abbé Georgel, of the baroness d’Oberkirch, of Beugnot, and of Madame Campan; and works cited under Diamond Necklace.
ROHILKHAND, a tract in the United Provinces of India. The name is associated with the Rohilla tribe (q.v.), but in its historical significance it covers an area almost coincident with the modern division of Bareilly, for which it is a common alternative title. This division has an area of 10,720 sq. m., and comprises the districts of Bareilly, Bijnor, Budaun, Moradabad, Shahjahanpur and Pilibhit. Pop. (1901) 5,479,688. Political control over the state of Rampur is exercised by the commissioner for the division.
ROHILLA (a Pushtu word for “mountaineer”), a tribe of Afghan marauders, who, towards the beginning of the 18th
century, conquered a district of Hindostan, giving it the name
of Rohilkhand, which still survives as an alternative title of
the Bareilly division of the United Provinces. The Rohillas
are chiefly notable for their association with Warren Hastings,
which formed one of the main counts in his impeachment.
Having been driven into the mountains by the Mahrattas, they
had appealed for aid to Shuja-ud-Dowlah, Wazir of Oudh, and
ally of the British. The Wazir promised to assist them in
return for a sum of money; but when the Mahrattas were
driven off the Rohilla chiefs refused to pay. The Wazir then
decided to annex their country, and appealed to Hastingsfor
assistance, which was given in return for a sum of forty lakhs
of rupees. Hastings justified his action on the ground that the
Rohillas were a danger to the British as uncovering the flank of Oudh; and while he would never involve the company
in an unjust war, neither did he desire an unprofitable
one. The Rohillas were defeated by Colonel Champion in
April 1774, and the majority of them fled across the Ganges;
but the charges of destroying a nation, brought against Hastings
by Burke and Macaulay, were greatly exaggerated. The
Rohillas were never a nation, but consisted of a small body of
Mahommedans, who had imposed an alien rule upon a million
Hindus; and one of their chiefs was left in possession of a tract which now forms the state of Rampur (q.v.).
See Charles Hamilton, History of the Rohilla Afghans (1787); and Sir J. Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War (Oxford, 1892).
ROHLFS, FRIEDRICH GERHARD (1831–1896), German explorer of the Sahara, son of a physician, was born at Vegesack, near Bremen, on the 14th of April 1831. After the ordinary course at the gymnasium of Osnabrück he entered the Bremen corps in 1848, and took part as a volunteer in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, being made an officer after the battle of Idstedt (July 1850). He became a medical student at the universities of Heidelberg, Würzburg and then Göttingen; but his natural inclination was for travelling, and in 1855 he went to Algeria and enlisted in the Foreign Legion. He took part in the conquest of Kabylia, and was decorated for bravery as Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Having made himself master of Arabic and gained a thorough knowledge of native customs, Rohlfs went to Morocco in 1861; presenting himself as a Mussulman, he gained the favour of the enlightened sherif of Wazzan, and was thus enabled to travel over the length and breadth of the country. He then entered the Sahara and traversed the entire extent of the Wad Draa, being the second European (the first being René Caillié) to visit Tafilet. On leaving Tafilet he was robbed by his guides and left for dead; but two marabouts charitably succoured him and he was able to reach Algeria; When scarcely recovered from his wounds he started once more for the Sahara (August 1862) by way of Algeria. Compelled by tribal disturbances to turn back, he went to Tangier and thence in March 1864 made a fresh start. Crossing the Atlas by an eastern route he again visited Tafilet, and thence made his way across the desert to the oasis of Tuat, which he was the first European to describe. Returning by Ghadames and Tripoli he spent three months in Germany, and then (March 1865) went back to Tripoli, intending to explore the highlands of the Ahaggar; being prevented, however, by a war among the Tuareg, he went from Ghadames to Murzuk, where he spent five months, and thence across the Sahara to Bornu, mapping en route the oasis of Kawar. Rohlfs passed through Mandara and its ancient capital Mora, and struck out for the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. He reached the Benue by way of the Bauchi highlands, and descended that river to its confluence with the Niger, which he ascended to Rabba. Thence he made his way on horseback to Lagos, reaching Liverpool on the 2nd of July 1867. In the following year he accompanied the British expedition against Theodore of Abyssinia, and on his return went once more to Tripoli, whence he traversed the Cyrenaica, reaching Egypt by way of the oasis of Siwa (1869). Returning home, he married and settled down in Weimar. He did not rest long, however, for in 1873–74 he took command of an expedition sent by the Khedive Ismail into the Libyan Desert, which made investigations of great value to science. In 1878 Rohlfs and Dr Stecker were commissioned by the German African Society to go to Wadai. They succeeded in reaching the oasis of Kufra, one of the chief centres of the Senussites, but being attacked by the Arabs, they were obliged to retreat, making their way to the coast at Benghazi, reached in October 1879. In 1880 Rohlfs accompanied Dr Stecker in an exploring expedition to Abyssinia; but after delivering a letter from the German emperor to the Negus, he returned to Europe. In 1885, when the rivalry between the British and Germans in East Africa was very keen, Prince Bismarck appointed Rohlfs consul at Zanzibar, which island Bismarck desired to secure for, Germany. Rohlfs, untrained in diplomacy, was no match for Sir John Kirk, the British Agent, and he was soon recalled, and did not again visit Africa. He died at Rüngsdorf, near Bonn, on the 2nd of June 1896. Rohlfs visited many regions not before traversed by Europeans, and the value of his work was recognized in 1868 by the Royal Geographical Society, which bestowed on him the Patron’s Medal.
Accounts of each of his expeditions, and other works on Africa were published by Rohlfs, including Mein Erster Aufenthalt in Marokko (Bremen, 1873; English edition, Travels in Morocco, London, 1874); Reise durch Marokko (Bremen, 1868); Quer durch Afrika (Leipzig, 1874–75); Von Tripolis noch Alexandrien (Bremen, 1871); Expedition zur Erforschung der Libyschen Wüste (Cassel, 1875–76); Kufra: Reise von Tripolis nach der Oase Kufra (Leipzig, 1881); Land und Volk in Afrika (Bremen, 1870); Quid novi ex Africa? (Cassel, 1886). See also a biographical notice by Dr W. Wolkenhauer in the Deutsche geo. Blätter for 1896.
ROHTAK, a town and district of British India, in the Delhi division of the Punjab. The town, which is of great antiquity, became the headquarters of a British district in 1824. Viewed from the sand hills to the south, Rohtak, with its white mosque in the centre, a fort standing out boldly to the east, is striking and picturesque. It has a station on the Southern Punjab
