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 BAH

115

south-easterly direction (see geographical description), and that the plain of the Sarju and the Gogra alone yielded anything to the inciperial treasury.

On the edge of this same tabk-land and

on the banks of the Sarju, about ^^^^ miles west of the present town of Ndnpara, there exist the remains of a very large and most substantially built town. The houses (for the ruins appear to be merely those of private dwellings and not of temples or tombs) are built of burnt bricks, and it must have been a place of considerable importance. It bears the name among the country folk of Dugaon, and ^ is unmistakeably the same city as that mentioned by Abul Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari as a commercial centre of mark, the trade with the hill people being considerable. Here also there was a mint for copper pice. As we are told that Nasirud-din during his brilliant administration of this district made his power felt even in the hills and rendered Bahraich prosperous in the extreme, it is not improbable that it was under his auspices that this town was established. By the end of Shah Jah^n's reign it was deserted, the legend being that a saintly mendicant in a fit of ill -humour cursed it so effectually as to cause the inhabitants to leave it en masse. The tomb of the spiteful old man Shah Sdjan is now the resort of pious pilgrims, and a large fair is held on the site of the old town. Dugaon.

For the best part of a century after Nasir-tid -din's reign there appears The The district from 1250 to be nothing to record regarding this district. to I3i0 A. D. Ansaris were gradually extending their hold over the country in His^mpur, but the Bhars were evidently not yet crushed, for as late as the end of the fourteenth century Bhar chieftains held sway both in In the year 1340 A. D. the first of the series this pargana and in Fakhrpur. of grants by the reigning power was made from which sprang the greatness of most of the taluqdars' houses in this district. this year that the Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq paid a visit to the tomb of Sayyad Salar at Bahraich, and it was doubtTughto Bahraich. less in connection with this visit that the Sayyads of

It was in Muhammad laq's visit

Jarwal

first

obtained a footing in Hisampur.

Having come

so far in this historical sketch, it will be well now to follow it up as much as possible estate by estate, giving the

The sketch continued by estates.

account of each of the settlements during the fo.urteeuth and fifteenth centuries on which the subsequent

history of the district turns.

Section "VH

—

TTie

Muliammadan and Rajput

settlement,

—1340 A. D.

1450 A. D. ancestors of the Sayyads of Jarwal came from Persia, Sayyad Abii Talib having to fly before Changez Khan with all his f T Finding himself still unsafe wa?thetrorigiu and family to Khurdsan. there he came on to Lahore, where he died. His son early history. Aziz-ud-din in the year 1286 A. D. came on to Delhi, and AlM-ud-din, his quarters at Bado Sarai in the Bara son came into Oudh and took up his district JaMl-ud-din and Jamal-ud-din, Alld-ud-d(n's sons, succeeded

The

Banki



falling under the unmerited displeasure of their father, and Jalal-ud-din his life. Sultan Ghayas-ud-din, paid the forfeit with

the

II

2