DHOLPUR, a native state of Rájputáná, in Upper India, under the political superintendence of the British Government, is situated between 26° 30' and 26° 57' N. lat., and 77’ 32' and 78° 20' E. long. The state is bounded on the N. and N.E. by the British district of Agra, on the E. and S. by the Gwalior state, from which it is separated by the Chambal river, and on the W. by the state of Karauli. It contains an area of about 1600 square miles, and an estimated population of upwards of 500,000 souls. It is a crop-producing country, without any special manufactures. All along the bank of the Chambal the country is deeply intersected by ravines; low ranges of hills in the western portion of the state supply inexhaustible quarries of fine-grained and easily-worked red sandstone. The chief, who has the title of Ráná, belongs, like most of his subjects, to the tribe of Deswáli Játs, who are believed to have formed a portion of the Indo-Scythian wave of invasion which swept over Northern India about 100 A.D. The earliest recorded ancestor of the family is one Jeyt Sinh, who in 1068 held certain territories south of Al war. His descendant in 1505, Singan Deo, having distinguished himself in an expedition against the freebooters of the Deccan, was rewarded by the sovereignty of the small territory of Gohad, with the title of Ráná. The family gradually extended their possessions until they included 56 estates, yielding an annual revenue said to amount to 66 lakhs of rupees (£660,000). Upon the defeat of the Marhattás at Panipat in 1761, Ráná Bhim Sinh, the tenth in descent from Ráná Singan Deo, seized upon the fortress of Gwalior. Political relations between the Ráná and the East India Company commenced in 1779 during the Marhattá war, when an offensive and ...