e warlike character of its
inhabitants.

See Edw. Breese, _Kalendar of Gwynedd_ (London, 1874).

CARNATIC, or KARNATAK (Kannada, Karnata, Karnatakadesa), a name given by
Europeans to a region of southern India, between the Eastern Ghats and
the Coromandel coast, in the presidency of Madras. It is ultimately
derived, according to Bishop Caldwell (_Grammar of the Dravidian
Languages_), from _kar_, "black," and _nadu_, "country," _i.e._ "the
black country," "a term very suitable to designate the 'black cotton
soil,' as it is called, of the plateau of the Southern Deccan." Properly
the name is, in fact, applicable only to the country of the Kanarese
extending between the Eastern and Western Ghats, over an irregular area
narrowing northwards, from Palghat in the south to Bidar in the north,
and including Mysore. The extension of the name to the country south of
the Karnata was probably due to the Mahommedan conquerors who in the
16th century overthrew the kingdom of Vijayanagar, and who extended the
name which they found used of the country north of the Ghats to that
south of them. After this period the plain country of the south came to
be called Karnata Payanghat, or "lowlands," as distinguished from
Karnata Balaghat, or "highlands." The misapplication of the name
Carnatic was carried by the British a step further than by the
Mahommedans, it being confined by them to the country below the Ghats,
Mysore not being included. Officially, however, this name is no longer
applied, "the Carnatic" having become a mere geographical term.
Administratively the name Carnatic (or rather Karnatak) is now applied
only to the Bombay portion of the original Karnata, viz. the districts
of Belgaum, Dharwar and Bijapur, part of North Kanara, and the native
states of the Southern Mahratta agency and Kolhapur.

The region generally known to Europeans as the Carnatic, though no
longer a political or administrative division, is of great historical
importance. It extended along the eastern coast about 600 m. in length,
and from 50 to 100 m. in breadth. It was bounded on the north by the
Guntur circar, and thence it stretched southward to Cape Comorin. It was
divided into the Southern, Central and Northern Carnatic. The region
south of the river Coleroon, which passes the town of Trichinopoly, was
called the Southern Carnatic. The principal towns of this division were
Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madura, Tranquebar, Negapatam and Tinnevelly. The