UDAD, Aoudad or Audad, the Moorish name of the Barbary sheep, or arui, Ovis (Ammotragus) lervia, the only wild sheep found in Africa, where it inhabits all the mountain ranges of the north, descending to the eastward far into the heart of the Sudan. The udad is distinguished by the abundant hair on the throat and fore-quarters of the rams, and the length of the tail. In the absence of face-glands and in the structure of the horns the species approximates to the goats. The “lion-coloured” coat approximates to the hue of the limestone rocks on which these sheep dwell.
UDAIPUR, Oodeypore or Mewar, a native state of India in the Rajputana agency. Area, 12,691 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 1,030,212. Estimated revenue £200,000; tribute £17,000. The greater part of the country is level plain. A section of the Aravalli Mountains extends over the south-western and southern portions, and is rich in minerals, but the mines have been long closed. The general inclination of the country is from south-west to north-east, the Banas and its numerous feeders flowing from the base of the Aravalli range. There are many lakes and tanks in the state, the finest of which is the Debar or Jaisamand, with an area of nearly 21 sq. m.; it is considered to be the largest artificial sheet of water in the world. A portion of the state is traversed by the Malwa line of the Rajputana railway. A branch from Chitor towards Udaipur was taken over by the state in 1898, and was extended nearer to the capital. Like the rest of Rajputana the state suffered severely from famine in 1900. The ancient coinage is of the Sasanian or Persian type, copper issues of this type being still in circulation. Modern coins bear on the reverse the words “Friend of London.”
The chief, whose title is maharana, is the head of the Sisodhyia clan of Rajputs, and claims to be the direct representative of Rama, the mythical king of Ajodhya. He is universally recognized as the highest in rank of all the Rajput princes. The dynasty offered a heroic resistance to the Mahommedans, and boast that they never gave a daughter to a Mogul emperor. They are said to have come from Gujarat and settled at Chitor in the 8th century. After the capture of Chitor by Akbar in 1568 the capital was removed to Udaipur by Maharana Udai Singh. During the 18th century the state suffered greatly from internal dissension and from the inroads of the Mahrattas. It came under British protection in 1817. The Maharana Fateh Singh, G.C.S.I. (b. 1848), succeeded by adoption in 1884.
The name of Mewar is derived from the Meos, or Minas, a tribe of mixed Rajput origin, who have likewise given their name to a different tract in northern Rajputana, called Mewat, where they are now all Mahommedans. About 1400 a sub-division of the Mewatis, Called Khanzadas, made themselves the dominant power in this tract; and at the end of the 18th century, and again during the Mutiny, they were notorious for their ravages in the Upper Doab, around Agra and Delhi. In 1901 the total number of Mewatis in Rajputana was 168,596, forming 13% of the population in the state of Alwar. Down to 1906 the Mewar residency was the title of a political agency in Rajputana, comprising the four states. of Udaipur, Banswara, Dungarpur and Partabgarh; area, 16,970 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 1,336,283. But in that year the three last states were separated from Udaipur, and formed into the Southern Rajputana States agency. The Mewar Bhil Corps, raised as a local battalion in 1840, which was conspicuously loyal during the Mutiny, was in 1897 attached to the Indian army, with its headquarters at Kherwara.
The city of Udaipur is 2469 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 45,976. It is situated in a valley amid wooded hills, on the bank of a large lake (Pichola), with palaces built of granite and marble. The maharana's palace, which crowns the ridge on which the city stands, dates originally from about 1570, but has had additions made to it till it has become a conglomeration of various architectural styles. On Lake Pichola are two islands, on which are palaces dating respectively from the middle of the 17th and of the 18th centuries. In one of these the European residents were sheltered during the Indian Mutiny. In the neighbourhood are Eklingji (with a magnificent temple of the 15th century), and Nagda, the seat of the ancestors of the chiefs of Udaipur, with a number of temples, two of which are said to date from the 11th century.
There is another Udaipur State in the Central Provinces (till 1905 one of the Chota Nagpur states of Bengal). Area, 1052 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 45,391. Its capital is Dharmjaygarh.
UDAL, NICHOLAS (1504-1556), English schoolmaster, translator and playwright, author of the earliest extant English comedy, Roister Doister, came of the family of Uvedale, who in the 14th century became lords of Wykeham, Hants, by marriage with the heiress of the Scures. The name was probably pronounced Oovedale, as it appears as Yevedale, Owdall, Woodall, with other variants. He latinized it as Udallus, and thence anglicized it as Udall. He is described as Owdall of the parish of St Cross, Southampton, 12 years old at Christmas 1516, when admitted a scholar of Winchester College in 1517 (Win. Schol. Reg.). He was therefore not 14 (as Anthony Wood says) but 16½ years of age when admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in June 1520; he is called Wodall as a lecturer at that college in 1526 to 1528 (T. Fowler, Hist. C. C. C.).
With John Leland he produced “dites” (ditties) “and interludes” (B.M. MS. 18A lxiv.) at Anne Boleyn's coronation on the 31st of May 1533. Leland's contributions are all in Latin; those of “Udallus,” which form the chief part, are mostly in English, the speeches being each spoken by a “child,” at Cornhill beside Leadenhall, “at the Conducte in Cornhill” and “at the little Conducte in Cheepe.” His Floures for Latine Spekynge, selected and gathered out of Terence and the same translated into Englysshe, published by Bartlet (in aedibus Bertheleti), were dedicated “to my most sweet flock of pupils, from the monastery of the monks of the order of Augustine,” on the 28th of February 1533-1534. There were no monks of that order, and whether Austin Friars or Augustinian canons were meant is open to doubt. The book was prefaced with laudatory Latin verses by Leland and by Edmund Jonson. The latter was a Winchester and Oxford contemporary of Udal's, in 1528 lower master (hostiarius) at Eton, a post which he left to become master of the school of St Anthony's Hospital, then the most flourishing school in London. From the dedication we may infer that Udal was usher under Jonson and “the sweet flock” was at St Anthony's school next door to Austin Friars. At Midsummer 1534 he became head master of Eton (informator puerorum or ludi grammaticalis; Eton Audit Book. 25-26 Hen. VIII.). It has been suggested (Dic. Nat. Biog.) that the Floures was dedicated to Eton boys in advance; but this is unlikely, as in those days schools never got their masters till the place was vacant, or on the verge of vacancy. At Eton Udal's salary was £10 and £1 for livery, with “petty receipts” of 8s. 4d. for obits, 2s. 8d. for laundress, 2s. for candles for his chamber, and 23s. 4d. “for ink, candles and other things given to the grammar school by Dr Lupton, provost.” One of his school books, Commentaries on the Tusculan questions of Cicero (ed. Berouldus, 1509), with the inscription “sum Nicolai Udalli 1536,” is in the King's Library at the British Museum.
There was a yearly play, 3s. being paid for the repair of the dresses of the players at Christmas, and 1s. 4d. to a servant of the dean of Windsor for bringing his master's' clothes for the players. A payment for repair of the players' dresses recurs every year. Udal has been credited (E. K. Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, ii. 144, 192) with producing a play at Braintree while vicar there, recorded in the churchwardens' accounts for 1534 as “Placidas alias Sir Eustace.” The play is actually called in the accounts (only extant in 17th-century extracts) “Placy Dacy alias St Ewastacy,” and is the old play of Placidas, mentioned in the 9th century. Udal did not become vicar of Braintree till the 27th of September 1537 (Newcourt's Repert. ii. 89). At Michaelmas he resigned the mastership of Eton to reside at Braintree, being called “late schole-master wose roome nowe enjoyeth and occupieth Mr Tindall” in a letter from the provost to Thomas Cromwell, then privy seal, on the 7th October 1537 (Lett. and Pa. Hen. VIII., 1537). He returned to Eton, however, or rather to Hedgeley, the school being removed there on account of the plague, at Midsummer 1537, being paid for the third and fourth terms of the school year
