anarchy still fermented in the population of Káthiáwár. Some venerable customs also survived. Litigants still retained their right of báhirwátia, literally, 'going out' against their neighbours. This method of adjusting suits for real property consisted in forcing the husbandmen to quit their villages, while the litigant retired with his brethren to 'some asylum, whence he may carry on his depredations with impunity.'
Lord Mayo keenly realised the evils from which Káthiáwár was suffering; but he also clearly perceived the futility of attempting to rush reforms upon the loose congeries of 187 chiefdoms that made up the Province. While, therefore, he gradually introduced a better system for the whole, he confined his more direct interference to a leading principality which might serve as an object lesson to the rest. One of the richest and most important States of the 'first class' in Káthiáwár passed to a minor. Instead of bringing it under a British regent, an experienced Native Minister and a picked Member of the Bombay Civil Service were appointed as its joint-rulers. The experiment succeeded admirably. Reforms which could not have been introduced by an English regent without popular opposition, and which would never have been introduced by a Native ruler at all, were smoothly and harmoniously effected. The State became, with a minimum of interference by the Suzerain Power, a model of prosperity and firm administration.
But during Lord Mayo's Viceroyalty, as during
