353 KOLHAPUR AND SOUTHERN MARATHA COUNTRY, Area 5,895 sq. miles. Population in 1891 1,552,401. Density of population 263 34 per sq. mile. Rainfall Average, 40 inches. Kolhápur is bounded on the north by the Várna river, which, for about sixty-six miles from Prachitgad to its meeting with the Krishna two miles Boundaries. south of Sángle, separates Kolhápur from Sátára ; on the east by the rivers Krishna and Dudhganga, Miraj and Sángli ; on the south by Belgaum ; and on the west by the Sahyádris. Sángli, the chief State of the Southern Marátha Country, consists of detached tracts extending from the British Districts of Sátára and Sholápur in the north to the river Tungbhadra in the south of the Bombay Presidency. The other States comprising the Southern Marátha Country are Miraj Senior and Junior, Kurundvád Senior and Junior, Jámkhandi, Mudhol, and Rámdurg. The seasons may be broadly divided into wet, cold, and hot. The rainy months are the healthiest time in the year. The cold season, which lasts from Climate and natural features. November to the end of February, is the most dry and unhealthy part of the year. The climate of the Southern Marátha Country, though hot, is not unhealthy. In the rainy season the climate is everywhere pleasant, except perhaps in Sháhápur, where the rainfall is heavy and constant. In the cold season the air is dry and the nights cool. The soil may be classed into black, red and white ; or again as good, middling, and poor. There is no authentic record of plague either in Kolhápur or the Southern Marátha Country, cholera being the only great source of epidemic Previous epidemics. disease there.* As this Agency consists of a number of States of varying size, which have suffered from plague epidemics at different times, and as, since November Kolhápur and S. M. Country. 1897, no single week has passed without plague being reported from the Agency, it will be convenient in this review to deal with each such State or portion of the Agency separately. The measures taken to combat and control the disease were very similar throughout the Agency, the difference being mainly in the vigour and promptitude with which they were enforced at various places. They are therefore enumerated here, and may be understood as applying throughout the Agency at such places as were attacked. Concerning the protection of villages from infection up to June 1898, Colonel J. W. Wray, the Political Agent, reports as follows:— " The inhabitants of every village have been urged to adopt a system of observation by which no strangers can enter their precincts without detention outside for 10 days, and the system has worked well and inexpensively, the Patels being held answerable for any careless- ness that may cause the village to become infected. " All approaches to the village are guarded by local arrangement, and even the postal runner who has been accustomed to pass through with the mail-bag has, by the courtesy of the Post- Master-General, been instructed to put down his bag on the border, and the bag is disinfected and taken in charge by a State servant who is held responsible for the safe delivery of the mail-bag. * Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XXIV, 89.