The census of 1871 showed a total population of 2,266,615 persons (1,112,066 males and 1,154,549 females), spread over an area of 9502 square miles, and inhabiting 5459 villages and 443,513 houses. Hindus numbered 2,062,768, and Mohammedans 132,833; and the Catholics at the present day number about 60,000, under the charge of the missions of the Jesuits and of the Church of Goa. The Protestant population are under the charge of an American mission, first established in 1834. The principal towns are Madura city (51,987), Dindigal (12,818), Palni (12,801), Râmnâd (15,442), Tirumangalam (5772), Parambakudi (6284), Sivagangâ (7392), Killakarài, Aruppukotai, and Periyakulam. The only municipalities are Madura and Dindigal.

Of a total area of 9502 square miles, 6507 belong to zamînélâri or permanently assessed estates. The total area of Government lands in occupation in 1875-76 was 1,013,000 acres, of which 806,630 were under cultivation. The chief food crops are rice, chοlam Holcus saccharakus), kambu {Ηolcus spicatus), ragt {Eleusine coracana), varagu {Ρasρalum frumentaceum), sarnâi {Panicum mili-accum), and several kinds of pulses. Other crops include oil-seed, tobacco of excellent quality, and a little indigo and cotton. The rainfall is small and var⅛ble in its. seasons. Every possible means of storing up surplus water has been resorted to from time immemorial. An important engineering project, known as the Periyâr scheme, has long been under consideration, by which the abundant rainfall on the farther slope of the Travancore hills might be diverted into the drainage basin of the Vaigai. Salt is manufactured at certain stations on the coast as a Government monopoly. Handsome turbans fringed with gold cloth, and a peculiar kind of red cloth, are specialities of Madura town. Considerable sea-borne trade is carried on by native craft, chiefly with Ceylon. Rice and other food grains, gingelly oil, spices, cloth, salt fish, tobacco, red ochre, and earthenware ate the principal exports. The district is traversed by the South Indian railway from Tinnevelli to Trichinopoli. The total imperial revenue in 1875-76 amounted to £393,448, of which £280,067 was derived from the land. Education in 1876-77 was afforded by 424 schools, attended by 12,509 pupils. Besides ordinary diseases, Madura possesses three special scourges :— endemic fever, which sometimes rages with exceptional severity; cholera, disseminated by pilgrims to the sacred temple at Râmes-waram; and the well-known “Madura foot.” This last complaint, known to science as morbus pedis entophyticus, is a species of fungus which spreads over the whole foot in a mass of tubercles. Its primary cause seems to be unknown.

History.— Madura was the seat of the Pandian monarchy, which ruled over this part of India from the 5th century b.c. to the end of the 11th century of our era. The last of the Pandia kings is said to have exterminated the Jains, and conquered the neighbouring kingdom of Chola; but he was in his turn overthrown by an invader from the north, conjectured to have been a Mohammedan. In 1324 a Moslem army under Malik Kafur occupied Madura, and the Hindus were held in subjection for a period of fifty years. Subsequently Madura became a province of the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar. In the middle of the 16th century the governor Viswanath established an hereditary rule which lasted for a century. The greatest of the line was Tirumala Nayak (1623-1659), whose magnificence and military exploits are recorded in the contemporary letters of the Jesuit missionaries. He adorned Madura with many public buildings, and extended his empire over the adjoining districts of Tinnevelli, Travancore, Coimbatore, Salem, and Trichinopoli. His repudiation of the nominal allegiance paid to the raja of Vijayanagar brought him into collision with the sultan of Bijapur, and Mohammedans, after the lapse of three centuries, again invaded Madura, and compelled him to pay them tribute. After the death of Tirumala the kingdom of Madura gradually fell to pieces. In 1740 the district fell into the hands of the nawàb of the Carnatic, and the line of the Nâyaks was extinguished. In 1762 British officers took charge of Madura, in trust for Wallah Jah, the last independent nawab of the Carnatic, who finally ceded his rights of sovereignty to the East India Company in 1801.

Madura, the chief town and headquarters of Madura district, is situated on the south bank of the Vaigâi river in 9° 55' 16” N. lat., and 78° 9' 44'' E. long., with a population (1871) of 51,987, being the fourth largest town in the Madras presidency. Its principal architectural feature is the great temple, forming a parallelogram 847 feet by 744 feet, surrounded by nine gopuras, one of which is 152 feet high. The principal structure is the “Hall of a Thousand Pillats” (the actual number being 997). The other buildings comprise the celebrated palace of Tirumala Nâyak, the most perfect relic of secular architecture in Madras. Its ruins cover a large area of ground, and a considerable sum of money has been recently assigned by Government for the restoration of the building. Only second in importance to the palace is the Vasanta or Puthu rnantapam t which still exists in complete preservation, and is said to have been built as a summer retreat for the god Sundareshwara, a form of Siva. On the opposite bank of the river is the Tamakam, a two-storied building of quaint architecture, said to have been erected as a stand from which to view sports and combats. Last is the Teppu-kulam or great tank, situated 1⅜ miles to the east of the town, and measuring 1200 yards each way. Once a year its banks are illuminated by (it is said) 100,000 lamps, while the idols from the pagoda are drawn round it on a teppam or raft.

MADURA, in High Javanese Madunten, an island of the East Indian Archipelago, separated by the shallow Strait of Madura from the east end of Java. It extends from about 112’ 32' to 114’ 7' E. long., and is divided into two nearly equal portions by the parallel of 7’ S. lat.; the· area is estimated at 2100 square miles. As the few travellers who have visited Madura have been for the most part content to follow the highways which, though running the whole length of the island, never strike very far inland either from the north or the south coast, a considerable part of the country is but vaguely known to Europeans. It may be safely asserted, however, that the general configuration is fairly simple,—the island being a plateau-like prolongation of the limestone range of northern Java, with frequent interchange of hill and dale, culminating towards the east in G unong Pedjudan or Tambuko at a height of 1542 feet. Hot springs are not unfrequent; and in the valley between Gunong Geger and Bandjar lies the mud volcano of Banju Ening. “Round the coast runs a girdle of tropical vegetation, broken only here and there by small white peaks with steep perpendicular cliffs;” but, except in a few alluvial tracts in the lower courses of the streams, the soil is thin and poor, and better fitted for pastoral than agricultural purposes. Maize is by far the most important of the crops; it is planted after rice in the non-irrigable sawahs, and often before it in the irrigable; in the tagal fields it is sometimes sown thrice in a single year, frequently along with hαtjang (various kinds of native beans). European enterprise has not yet invaded the island; there is only one sugar plantation, Tedjeh, near Pamakasan, established in 1835. Much attention is paid to the rearing of cattle,—the small Madura oxen being greatly prized in Java, and consequently forming a regular article of export. Petroleum is found in small quantities in all the departments, but the most valuable product of the island is its salt (hence perhaps the name Madura; Sansk. Mandura, salt). The manufacture, a Dutch Government monopoly, was formerly carried on in several places, as at Brantah and Bunder (where the salt pans now serve as fish ponds), but in 1870 Sumenep was made the sole establishment for Java and Madura, and it still remains by far the most important, though its annual production of 875,000 cwts. has since 1875 to be supplemented by Ragung and Pangaringan. The population of Madura was in 1879 returned as 768,992,—472 Europeans (mostly at Maringan near Sumenep), 3702 Chinese, 1445 Arabs and other Orientals, and 763,373 natives. These last constitute one of the three great races of Java and Madura, and speak a distinct language, for which compare Java, vol. xiii.

The following are the places of chief note in the island. Kamal at the south-west corner is the point where people usually cross from Java. Bangkalang is the large and flourishing chief town of Madura proper, with the old palace of the sultan ana the residences of the princes of the blood; the mosque is adorned with the first three suras of the Koran, thus differing from nearly all the mosques in Java and Madura, though resembling those of western Islam. In the vicinity once stood the Erfprins fort. Arisbaya (less correctly Arosbaya) is the place where the first mosque was built in Madura, and where the Dutch sailors first made acquaintance with the natives. The once excellent harbour is now silted up. Ajermata, so called from its salt-springs, is the burial-place of the princes of Bangkalang. Pamakasan, though a town of considerable extent, presents nothing worthy of notice apart from the regent’s residence. Sampang, the seat of an important market, seems hardly so flourishing as in Valentyn’s days. The town or kotα of Sumenep had 15,000 inhabitants in 1846; and there are populous Malay, Arab, and Chinese villages between the town and the European settlement of Maringan. On a hill in the neighbourhood, with a fine outlook over the Bay of Sumenep, lies Asta, the burial-place of the Sumenep princes; and Nâtâ Kusuma’s mausoleum excels everything of the kind in Java.

Madura formerly consisted of three native states—Madura or Bangkalang, Pamakasan, and Sumenep. Dutch authority was represented by an assistant resident, and the whole island considered part of the Java residency of Surabaya. The separate residency of Madura was constituted in 1857. On the death of the second sultan of .Bangkalang (1847) the title had been reduced to that of panembahan; and in 1872 the new ruler was deprived of the right of collecting taxes, and made a Government pensioner, while his territory was split into the two Dutch “departments” of Madura and Sampang. The sultan of Sumenep was in like manner succeeded by a panembahan in 1853; and the death of the panembahan in 1879 afforded an opportunity of enlarging the Government control. There are thus four “departments” in Madura,—Pamakasan, Madura, Sumenep, and Sampang. The first three are also regencies, and the fourth a subregency of Bangkalang; but Pamakasan alone has the full regency organization. The number of village communities is 1271.

The best systematic account of Madura will be found in Professor Veth’s Java, vol. iii., the proof sheets of which have, by the author’s courtesy, been consulted for this article. See also Bleeker, in Indisch. Archief., i., and Tijds. van Ned. Ind., ix.; C. de Groot in Nat. Tijds. van Ned. Ind., iv.; Hoeveil, Reis over Java, ii.; Zollinger, “Jets over de Nat. geschied. van Madura,” in N. Tijds. van Ned. Ind., xvii.; Jukes, Voyage of the u Fly"∙, and Hageman in Tijds. van Ned. Ind., 1858.