[Sidenote: 1. Map of India, Distinguishing Rajputana.] In the centre of northwestern India is a group of large native States known as Rajputana, of the greatest historical interest. These States are inhabited by ancient Hindu Aryan tribes, collectively known as Rajputs, which literally means “of princely descent.” They represent the purest and most ancient Indian stock, and here, almost alone of the larger native States, the Chiefs belong to the same race as their people. Rajputana suffered much from the Musulmans, but was never completely conquered by them, a fact in part due to the physical character of the country. [Sidenote: 2. Map of Northwestern India.] Through the centre of Rajputana, diagonally from the southwest northeastward, there runs the range of the Aravalli hills for a distance of fully three hundred miles, its northern extremity being the Ridge at Delhi on the Jumna River. At the southern end of the Aravallis, but separated from the main range by a hollow, is the isolated Mount Abu, the highest point in Rajputana, standing up conspicuously above the surrounding plains to a height of some five thousand feet. The top is a rugged plateau measuring fourteen miles by four. On this little upland, are the signs both of the antiquity and modernity of Rajputana—on the one hand, the world-famed ruins of Jain temples, and on the other, round the beautiful Gem Lake, the residences of the Agent of the Governor-General and his staff, who maintain the suzerainty of the King-Emperor in Rajputana. East of the Aravalli hills, in the basin of the Chambal tributary of the Jumna-Ganges, is the more fertile part of Rajputana, with the cities of Jaipur, Ajmer, Udaipur, and the old fortress of Chitor. Beyond the Chambal River itself, but within its basin, may be seen on the map the positions of Indore and Gwalior, the seats of the Maratha princes Holkar and Sindhia. Indore and Gwalior, however, belong to the Central Indian Agency and not to Rajputana. West of the Aravalli hills is the great Indian Desert, prolonged seaward by the salt and partly tidal marsh known as the Rann of Cutch. In oases of this desert are some of the smaller Rajput capitals, notably Bikaner. Beyond the desert flows the great Indus river, through a dry although not wholly desert land, in the midst of which, from Hyderabad to the sea, is the delta of Sind, as was said in the last lecture, a second Egypt, fertile and thickly peopled. South of Mount Abu, where the rivers descend from the end of the Aravalli hills to the Gulf of Cambay is another fertile lowland, with the beautiful city of Ahmadabad in the centre of it, but this city is in British territory, being in the Province of Bombay, and therefore outside the Tributary States of Rajputana. Ajmer, beside the Aravalli hills, is in an island of directly ruled British territory completely surrounded by Feudatory Rajputana.