430 HISTORY OF INDIA. [Book III.
.v. 1732. latter adopting the .same northern limit, but not descending furtiier .%utli tiian the country immediately north of the Coleroon, and at the same time so con- fining it on the west as not to leave it an average breadth of more than seventy- five miles. In this latter sense the Carnatic is nearly identical with the teiri- tory which, under the Mogul empire, formed one of the principal provinces of the soubah or government of the Deccan, and was administered by the sou- bahdar's nabob or deputy, under the title of the Nabob of Arcot, the whole nabobship taking its name from Arcot, the capital. The country thus define<l consists of two portions, differing greatly in their physical features, and distin- T)ie Ghauts, guislied from each other by the names of Balaghaut and Payeenghaut, or tlie land above and the land beneath the mountain passes. The Balaghaut, covered by a portion of the Eastern Ghauts, is elevated, and forms a kind of table-land, not so much traversed by continuous ridges as broken up by Isolated hills an<i mountains, rising in precipitous masses, and not unfrequently separated from each other by deep ravines. The Payeenghaut, on the contrary, is a maritime flat, little elevated above sea level, and traversed by the beds of numerous streams, generally dry dming the hot, but filled to overflowing during the rainy season. Immediately south of the nabobship of Arcot, and separated from it by a boimdary not well defined, were the two rajahships or Hindoo states of Tri- chinopoly and Tanjore, which, though governed by their own princes, were so far dependent on the Nabob of Arcot, who levied tribute from them, not indeed in his own name, but as the deputy of the Mogul. The Nabob "phc nabobsliip of Arcot was held from 1710 to 1 732 by an able and popular
saaatiuia. chicf, of the name of Sadatulla, or, more properly, Saadut Oolla Khan. The office was not recognized as hereditary. It was held by commission from Delhi, but in the event of the Mogul not exercising, or dela;ying to exercise the right of nomination, a temporary appointment was made by the Soubahdar of the Deccan. Such was the regular mode of procedure when the Mogul empire was in vigour ; but in the state of decay into which it had fallen, the imperial commis- sion was regarded as only a form, and the right of appointment was tacitly, if not overtly contested between the soubahdar and the nabob, the one claiming it as his prerogative, and the other striving to render it hereditary in his family. Saadut Oolla having no issue, had adopted the two sons of his brother, and left a will by which he destined the nabobship to Doast Ali, the elder, and the subordinate government of Vellore to Boker Ali, the younger. By the same deed he conferred the office of dewan or prime minister on Gholam Hussein, the nephew of his favourite wife. Nizam-ul-Moolk, who, as has been already seen, regarded himself as independent sovereign of the Deccan, not having been consulted in these appointments, regarded them as encroachments on liis autho- rity, but, owing to other political entanglements at the time, was not in a posi- tion to give effect to his resentment.
Doast Ali, at the time of his succession, had two sons, of whom the elder,
