Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/162

 AUK

84

of which 32,835 were under crops, being 60'05 per cent, of the total assessOf the 6,696 acres unassessed, 1,199 are under able area of 54,681 acres. groves and 759 were held revenue-free. The percentage of irrigation is only 20"55, which is smaller than what has been found in other parganas. The reasons appear to be that 47 per cent, of the cultivated area is under kharif crops, to 38 per cent, in the adjoining pargana of Pasgawan. There is much high and undulating land in this pargana along the river Gumti where wells cannot be used, and, except in very dry years, much irrigation is not resorted to for the wet cultivation on the lower levels of the Gumti. The average number of acres of cultivation to each plough is 6'66 1-33 acres of cultivated land to each head of the population.

The pargana comprises a total area of 116 square miles, with a populabut if the area under grants be deducted tion of 248 to the square mile in order to obtain better data, then the area assessed will stand at 99 square The general features of miles, and population at 283 per square mile. the pargana will be best understood by drawing a line from north to south through the centre of the pargana passing through Qasba Aurangabad, dividing it into equal parts when the half of the pargana lying to the west of this line will be found to consist of high, arid, sandy plains, undulating and broken over the river Gumti, along which are ranged the poorest class of villages, and those owing to the sailab cultivation along the



river.

The eastern half of the pargana consists of villages of the first and second classes, with dumat soil generally of different shades of fertility. Here water is nearer the surface, and kachcha wells stand for a year or more, according to locality. Dofasli crops are met with in the " jhabar" depressions by the river, and the cultivation is much superior in every respect, reaching up to the edges of the belt of jungle grants. Aurangabad, in common with

the parganas lying between the Gumti the two streams above-menbelow the level of the country. all

and the Kathna, greatly requires tioned

lie

much

irrigation



Aurangabad was one of the seats of the great Sayyad rdj which governed the country from Pihani to the Gogra. Their history is told under district Kheri. In Aurangabad they met the advancing forces of the Gaur Chhattris and were defeated.

The population

of the

pargana

is

28,823, of

whom Musalmans

are only

this is rather remarkable, as Musalmans have been the chief proBrahmans number 3,696 ; Chhattris, 2,021. prietors for many years.

1,737



The

soil

being

light, cultivators of

good caste are very few.

The town of Aurangabad with its ruined fort, and the monument erected over the spot where the Shahjahanpur fugitives were massacred in 1857, The metalled road from Sitapur to are the principle objects of interest. Shahjahdnpur runs through this pargana. '

AURANGABAD Aurangabad

is

Pargana

—Tahail Miseikh—District Sitapur. —Pargana.

bounded on the west and south by the

river

Gumti, which