— BELGAUM. by
are generally shaded
pear (Opuntia vulgaris). cation. tile;
233
trees,
and surrounded by a hedge, of prickly
They
are otherwise without defence or
fortifi-
In the west of the District, the houses have roofs of thatch or
but towards the east where the rainfall
is light,
the roof
is flat,
made
mud and
surrounded by a mud parapet. Each village has generally one chief street, in which the richest villagers have their dwellings, of
with smaller roads branching off at right angles.
Except
in the larger
towns, there are few houses
more than one
villages, the well to-do live in
houses with walls of brick and doors of
wood, of which, carved.
The
many
in
instances, the posts
In country
storey high.
and
lintels are elegantly
foundations of the houses are raised on a plinth generally
of hewn stone, 2 or 3 feet above the level of the street. classes live in dwellings with walls of mud and straw,
The middle
and doors of plaited or woven bamboos the poor in huts with roofs of thatch and walls of a few bamboos interlaced with millet stalks, sometimes daubed over with mud. Outside the village hedge, a group of carelesslymade hovels form the quarters of the Mahars and other depressed
classes.
Exclusive of the hamlets, there were, in 1881, 5 towns and 1072 inhabited villages, giving an average of ’22 villages to each square mile,
and 87 ‘82 inhabitants to each
village.
The number
of houses,
occupied and unoccupied, was 188,694, or 40‘5 per square mile. The chief towns of the District are (i) Belgaum, with a population of 32,697, inclusive of 9582 in the cantonment; (2) Gokak, population 10,307; (3) Athni, population 11,186; (4) Nipani, population 9777;
Saundatti, population 7133 (6) Yamkanmardi, population 4491. Trade associations or guilds scarcely exist in Belgaum, and the constitution of the village community is but imperfectly preserved. 1 he office of village head-man or paid still remains in many cases hereditary and more rarely stipendiary. By caste, most of the village head-men are Hindus of the Lingayat sect. The office of village clerk, hdkar?ti, is, (s)
with but few exceptions, hereditary in caste.
Mahar
Almost caste.
Hindu
families of the
villages
cash and in land.
The
other
members of the full staff of The shoemaker, the
servants are found in but few villages.
and the potter
still
almost completely Agriculture
.
Brahman
have watchmen and messengers of the The head-man, clerk, and watchman are paid both in all
village
barber,
remain, but only as ordinary' workmen, having
lost their public character.
— In 1880-81 the
total area of arable
land in the District
which 1,032,253 acres were in occupation; the remainder, 106,797 acres, lay waste. Wet cultivation is carried on to a very limited extent, being adopted only for rice fields and gardens. Irrigated lands in the most favourable situations receive their supply of water by canals from perennial rivulets, or from rivers that have dams was 1,139,050
acres, of
