Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/625

Rh N O R N O R 573 of Naini Tal, Masuri (Mussoorce), and Landaur, the sacred town of Hardwar, the ruined sites of Kanauj and Hastinapur, the deserted Mughal capital of Fatehpur Sfkri, and the ancient temples and fortresses of Mahoha and Kalinjar. Most of the great towns lie along the banks of the Ganges and the Jumna. Agriculture. Of a total area of 81,858 square miles, 38,169 were returned as under cultivation in 1881-82. Eleven great canal irri gation works have been undertaken by Government : (1) Ganges Canal, (2) Eastern Jumna Canal, (3) Agra Canal, (4) Dun Canals, (5) Rohilkhand Canals, (6) Bijnaur Canals, (7) Bundelkhand Lakes, (8) Lower Ganges Canal, (9) Bundelkhand survey, (10) Sardah Canal survey, and (11) Betwa Canal. The total area irrigated in 1881-82 by Government works amounted to 1,395,217 acres. There are two principal harvests, in autumn and spring. The great agricultural staple is wheat. The chief commercial crops include indigo, cotton, sugar, oil-seeds, and opium. The cultivation of tea is confined to the submontane districts of Kumaun, Garhwal, and Dehra Dun. The produce is chiefly manufactured into green tea, which finds a ready sale across the frontier in Central Asia, and is also exported to England. Rice and sugar-cane grow chiefly in the river valleys or in irrigated fields ; wheat is raised on the uplands by the aid of canals and wells ; millets and cotton grow on the drier soils, while tobacco, vegetables, and other richer crops occupy manured plots in the neighbourhood of villages. The three principal recognized tenures are (1) zamlnddrl, in which the whole land is held and managed in common, the rents and profits of the entire estate being thrown into a common stock and divided among the shareholders ; (2) pattidari, in which the lands are held severally by the different proprietors, all of whom are jointly responsible for the Government revenue ; (3) bhdydchdra, in which portions of the soil are held severally, while other portions may be held in common, with joint responsibility for the Government demand. In the hill tracts the peasantry are well off and independent ; in the more favoured plain districts they are in fairly comfortable circumstances ; but in Bundelkhand they still suffer from the effects of former misrule and from the effects of recent famines. Commerce and Trade; Communication, &amp;lt;fcc. The exports of the North- Western Provinces are principally confined to its raw agri cultural produce wheat, oil-seeds, cotton, indigo, sugar, molasses, timber and forest produce, dye-stuffs, ghi, opium, and tobacco. The imports consist mainly of Manchester piece-goods, metal-work, manufactured wares, salt, and European goods. The principal manufactures are sugar, indigo, and coarse cotton cloth. Orna mental metal-work is made at Benares. The only factories on the English model are the Elgin and Muir cotton mills at Cawnpur, the Shahjahanpur rum distillery, and breweries at Masuri and Naini Tal. The largest and most valuable portion of the trade of the Pro vinces is now conducted by rail direct with Calcutta, but the great waterways of the Ganges and Jumna still carry a large part of the heavy traffic. The Gogra forms the main channel for the grain and cotton of Gorakhpur, Basti, and Azamgarh, and for the forest pro duce of Nepal. The lines of railway are the East Indian, which enters the North -Western Provinces from Bengal, and has its ter minus at Delhi ; the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi line ; the Oudh and Rohilkhand Railway ; and the Ru jputana State Railway, connecting Agra with Bhartpur. The great trunk road traverses the heart of the Provinces. Administration. The North- Western Provinces are under the administrative charge of a lieutenant-governor, who resides at Alla habad. The total revenue (including that of Oudh) in 1881-82 amounted to 9,075,727, and the expenditure to 4,362,274. The chief item of receipt is the land-tax, which produced during the same year 5,751,104. Education is making steady progress throughout the central Gangetic plain, though still very backward in the Himalayan districts, in Bundelkhand, and in the remoter parts of Rohilkhand and the trans-Gogra tract. The total number of colleges and schools in the North-Western Provinces in 1881-82 was 5063, with a roll of 170,966 pupils, of whom 142,190 were Hindus and 24,437 Mohammedans. The principal institutions for higher English education are the Muir Central College at Allahabad, and the Government and Church Missionary Society s Colleges at Agra. The Benares College gives high Sanskrit education, while Delhi College, just beyond the borders, gives instruction in Arabic and Persian. Primary education is afforded by a complete system of village schools, the Provinces being divided into three circles of inspection, and elementary instruction is now brought within easy reach of all who choose to avail themselves of it. History. The traditions of the Mahdbharata cluster round the city of Hastinapur in Meerut district, which, with Indraprastha, whose shapeless ruins are still to be seen near Delhi, formed the re spective capitals of the Pandavas and Kauravas. The earliest empire in this part of India, however, of which any certain monuments re main was that of the Buddhist dynasty of Magadha, which attained its greatest development under Asoka (see vol. xii. p. 784 sq. ). Continuous history begins with the Mohammedan invasion of Mahmiid of Ghazni, who sacked the sacred cities of Kanauj and Muttra in 1017 A.D. Mohammed Ghori, however, was the real founder of the Moslem p,ower in Hindustan. In 1193 the seat of the Moslem empire was fixed at Delhi, where it remained, with few intermissions, till the British conquest. The British first came into connexion with the North-Western Provinces as they advanced along the valley of the Ganges from Bengal. In 1763 the nawab wazfr of Oudh, with the phantom emperor Shah Alain, invaded Bengal. They received a crushing defeat at Baxar, and the emperor, with Balwant Sinh, raja of Benares, joined the British camp. In 1775 the nawab of Oudh, Asaf-ud-daula, ceded Benares, Jaunpur, and Ghazi pur to the British, retaining Allahabad and Korah, which had been taken from the emperor in the previous year, when the British sold them to Oudh. The nawab waai r, having agreed to pay a subsidy for the English troops maintained for his aid, and being always in arrear, signed in 1801 the treaty of Lucknow, by which he made over to the British the whole of his Oudh dominions in the Doab, together with Rohilkhand. For Lord Lake s campaign in 1803 against Sindhia, which brought the whole remaining portion of the North-Western Provinces under British rule, see vol. xii. p. 804. The Himalayan districts of Kumaun and Garhwal were not acquired until after the Gurkha war of 1814-15, while the Delhi territory remained the personal apanage of the Mughal royal family until 1832, when it passed to the direct government of the East India Company. The first half-century of the British occupation was a period of peaceful progress. The Doab especially rose into a great agricul tural and commercial tract, filled with new and growing cities, such as Cawnpur, Meerut, Aligarh, Rurki (Roorkee), and Saharan- pur. This peaceful period was interrupted by the mutiny of 1857, which first broke out in the North-Western Provinces, and pro duced more disastrous effects in this tract than in any other part of India. Since the repression of the rebellion the principal event of importance in the Provinces has been the rapid development of the railway system, which is revolutionizing the commercial condition of the country and throwing open fresh outlets for its agricultural wealth. The outlying chief-commissionership of Oudh was placed under the administration of the lieutenant-governor of the North-Western Provinces from January 1877. (W. W. H.) NORTH-WEST TERRITORY was at first the vague general designation of all that portion of British North America which lay to the north-west of the provinces of the St Lawrence basin. In the British North America Act of 1867 provision was made for the eventual admission into the Dominion of Canada of Rupert s Land and the North- Western Territory. When, in 1869-70, the territories of the Hudson s Bay Company (Rupert s Land, &c.) were incorporated with Canada, the province of Manitoba was formed out of the district lying between 49 and 50 30 N. lat. and between 96 and 99 W. long., and &quot;any por tion of Rupert s Land and the North- West Territory out side&quot; of those limits was to be governed by the lieutenant- governor of Manitoba under the name of the North- West Territories. In 1 876 the district of Keewatin (or Kewatin) was constituted; in 1881 the limits of Manitoba were shifted north to 52 30 and west to 101 20 ; and in 1882 the four new districts of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Athabasca were organized. (1) Keewatin (395,000 square miles) lies due north of Manitoba, and extends as far as Boothia on the Arctic Ocean. (2) Assiniboia (about 95,000 square miles) lies west of Manitoba between 101 20 W. long, and the line dividing the 10th and 1 1th ranges of townships of the Lands System Survey, and is bounded northward by the 9th correction line (near 52 N. lat.). It contains Fort Felly, Fort Ellice, Qu Appelle, and Regina (on the Canadian Pacific Railroad), the last of which has been chosen as the future capital of the province. (3) Saskatchewan (about 114,000 square miles) lies north of Assiniboia, and extends north to the 18th correction line (about 54 N. lat.) and east to the Nelson river and Lake Winnipeg. It contains Battleforcl, Carleton, Prince Albert. (4) Alberta (100,000 square miles) is all the country due west of Assiniboia and Saskatchewan as far as the boundary of British Columbia. (5) Athabasca (122,000 square miles) is the country due north of Alberta as far as the 32d correc tion line (about 60 N. lat.). The term North-West Terri tories is now used to indicate, not only the unorganized region to the north-west, but all the unorganized region of British North America, inclusive even of Labrador.