PREFACE

clan of Rajputs in Rajputana which does not either trace
its origin through this province or claim connexion with
it either through conquest from the north or through
intermarriages.

In Chapter IV Captain Bell deals with what is known
as the Walabhi dynasty of Rajputs and gives a fairly
comprehensive account of the condition of that dynasty
during a period of some three hundred years. It would
have been interesting, had it been possible, for the author
to trace the connexion between Walabhipura and Raj-
putana more directly than has been possible with the
space at his disposal. Readers of Tod's " Rajasthan "
will remember some of that great historian's speculations
in connexion with the rise of the Sisodia clan of the
Rajputs, and will remember how Bappa Rawal claimed
descent from a race having its first Indian habitat at or
near Walabhipura, or, as Captain Bell calls it, Walabhi-
nagar. It is to be hoped that some future investigator,
with the constantly increasing materials which become or
may become available, will see his way to tracing more
closely than has been done in this book the chain con-
necting the oldest clans of Rajputana with the early
invaders who passed through Kathiawad and Sind.

As we come down to more modern times, it is possible
to be more precise in the matter of tracing origins ; and
in Chapter VI Captain Bell has given an interesting
account of the coming of the Jhala Rajputs, as handed
down traditionally in Kathiawad* He indicates there
that the Jhalas, through their habitat in Sind, are probably
able to claim Greek descent, but, even if this hypothesis
was not proved to be established, it is fairly clear that
this race was at all events intermingled with the Greek
dynasties of the Sind valley and North-Western Punjab.
In connexion with the advent of the Kathis to Kathia-
wad, which took place about the eleventh century, the

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