ABSTRACT

Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod had a fascination for demography. This chapter attempts to have a close look at the nature and character of the data preserved in his Annals and Antiquities, which provides direct as well as indirect evidence on town population for the 1820s. It deals with the towns of Jaisalmer and their population. The chapter covers the towns of Bikaner and the towns of Mewar. The evidence furnished by Tod about the state of Bikaner is of two kinds: first, the number of houses of the towns and second, the number of houses for all the villages. The information of house-count of towns furnished by Tod is used for estimation of the urban population. The data collected by Tod for the towns of Mewar exclusively for two years, i.e. 1818 and 1822, just to show the increase in the urban population, particularly after the British treaty with the Sisodia state, require further investigation.