POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY 245
section of the Punjab Army Corps is employed in
watching it.
After the frontier, Haidarabad (Muhammadan) is the
largest, and politically the most important, of all native
states. It includes an area of 82,600 square miles,
stretching from the border of Bombay on the west to the
Godavari and Madras on the east, with Berar on the
north. The best part of the Dekkan highlands belongs to
Haidarabad. The Godavari and the Kistna flow through
it and fertilise it ; and it possesses 11,500,000 inhabitants, a
large native army, and a State railway of its own. The
Hindu state of Mysore (Maisur, 28,000 square miles and
5,000,000 inhabitants) lies to the south of Haidarabad,
occupying all the central portion of the peninsula, and is
next in political importance. In the extreme south is
another Hindu state (Travancore) which occupies a wide
strip of the western coast, but which is politically unimportant.
 East of Haidarabad, and dovetailed in between
the Godavari and the coast province of Madras, are the
wild Gond highlands divided between two Hindu native
States, Jaipur and Jugdulpur (or Bustar), whose remoteness
 and insalubrity render them comparatively unimportant
 items in the scheme of Indian administration.
Thus we see that Southern India is very nearly
divided between British and semi-independent territory,
and that so long as the independence of these southern
native states is emphasised by the maintenance of local
armies it is necessary that we should preserve a considerable
 force in the south (as in the north) to preserve
the balance of military power.
Rajputana and Central India are (like Baluchistan)
political agencies (answering to provinces) under the
Foreign Department of India, and are administered by an
agent to the Governor-General, who ranks much the same
as a Commissioner in the non-regulation provinces. He
is assisted by a staff of residents and political agents, who
are officers drawn from various sources, both civil and
military, attached to the Foreign Department. These
two great central agencies comprise the chief Rajput and