Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/211

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BAH

133

Captain Oir, -who was deputed by the Eesident at Lucknow to pass through the district that had been affected by this Captaia Orr's descripscourge, writes in 184I9 "The once flourishing districts tion of the district after the two years' of Gonda and Bahraich, so noted for fertility and

admiaistration of Raghubar Dayal.

beauty, are now for the greater part uncultivated villages completely deserted in the midst of lands devoid of all tillage everywhere meet the eye and from Fyzabad to Bahraich, I passed through these districts, a distance of eighty miles, over plains which had been well cultivated, but now lay entirely waste, a scene for two years of great misery ending in desolation."

unnecessary here to recount all the atrocities committed by this man. Colonel Sleeman in his Diary, Volume I, pages yet recovered from 70-95, has given a vivid description of them as he the effects. remarks, " no tjrrant ever wrote his name in such a legible hand," but the execration in which that name is held in this district It will be long, howwill outlast even the effacement of the handwriting. ever, ere the district recovers from the wholesale devastations of Rughubar Dayal and his crew. Bahraich suffered far more from him than Gonda, and it is not too much to say that the scanty population of this district as compared with Gonda is due in a great measure to this fact. He not only devasted the country, he actually depopulated it. It

is

The

district has not



under his infamous rule were the ilaqas Baundi, Rahwa, Piagpur, Gangwal, and Charda. suifered most. Nanpara, Bhinga and Ikauna owed their comparative impunity, the first named to the strong hand of its master, Munawwar Ali Khan, and the two latter to their distance from Raghubar Dayal's headquarters. The cis-Rapti portions of Bhinga, however, and the Ikauna lands situated in the Bahraich pargana did not escape.

The

The

estates that fared the worst

estates

which

Colonel Sleeman,

-,,,„!

i Colonel Sleeman s notes.

tricts

.

who made a

.., principal



Names

progress through the district in 1849, report on the condition of the •.i^-ni -i i/~( i i-

makes the following

of estates.

^^

,

estates

m

the Eanraich and Gonda dis-