Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/174

 BAH

96

Bhitauli estate, the only Cis-Gogra part of Bahraich, was transferred to

Bara Banki, and the district thus made conveniently 2,598 square miles, but this is exclusive of grants, and forests. *

compact and symmetrical as redefined, it measures

The physical features of the district are well marked and are determined by the course of the two fine rivers which Physical features debelt flow through it, the Gogra and the Rdpti. termmed by the course ?• j j i i i .°t,i An r 01 comparatively high table-land, raised some 40 leet of the Oogra and Rapti.

The

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above the level of the country on each side of it, The centre plateau. ^^^^ through the district in a south-east direction,, forming the watershed of these two rivers. This belt is very well defined, and has a nearly uniform breadth of about 12 or 13 miles.

The J,

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river Bhakla, called in the lower part of its course the Singhia,. ., an affluent of the Rapti, determines its limits north-

eastwards, while its south-western bank runs from the Chakia jungle past Sara and Nanpara to Bamhni ; thence making a bend eastwards it reaches Bahraich itself, which is built on its very edge. Near Bahraich the Tihri, a drainage stream, takes its rise, and flows for some distance under the bank then, keeping to the north-east of Baghel Tal, leaves the district not far from Gangwal.

This belt of high ground comprises the western portion of pargana. Charda, the eastern half of Ndnpara, nearly the whole of pargana Bahraich, and about half the southern half of Ikauna. It measures about 670 square miles in extent. great plain of the Gogra stretches away from the edge of this high ground to the river itself, which flows in a direction ™ ot t e gguth-east at a distance varying from 10 miles in Go-Sa the north to 3-5 in the south. Common tradition asserts, and the whole face of the country supports the theory, that in ages past the Gogra flowed immediately under the high bank described above,and that it gradually receded westward until it reached its present course.

The

The numerous channels with which

this alluvial plain is scored in

parts testify to the fact that

it

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has been subjected at

different times to fluvial action. These channels, of which some now form mere drainage streams and some are dry throughout the greater part of the year, have a general direction, tortuous as their courses are, parallel to that of the river and thus suggest the notion that at sometime or other they formed the actual bed of the river which has now deserted them, while such lakes as the Nigri,. Ganaur, Anarkali, Chittaur and Baghel Tal, can never have been scored out by anything but a very large volume of water such as now finds its way in the Gogra, known in the upper part of its course as the Kauridla. ""^^

action

1873, pages II and XXV, at 2,652 in census table No. Ill, prepared in December 1874> The attempt to attain accuracy is hopeless,
 * The area is differently stated at 2,710 and 2,636 square miles in statistical tables of