Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/290

 ;

BAL

212

tree as the growth of the tooth-brush of the object of their venerations * The town is comparatively modern, and derives its name from the pargana

the original seat of the, Balrdmpur Rajas being the little village of Dhosahi, contiguous to the west. It has no peculiar history. On the rare occasions when the whole pargana was kachcha, it was the seat of a Government tahsildar, and a royal news-writer was maintained to report on the occurrences in the Tarai,

—

—

BALRAMPTIR Pargana

—A

Tahsil TJtraula District Gonda. large pargana in the Gonda district. Is bounded to the north by the Tulsipur pargana, to the west by Bahraich, the south by the Kuwana river, pargana TJtraula, and the Rapti, and to the east by Tulsipur and the district of Basti in the North-Westem Provinces. Its total area is 396 square miles, its greatest breadth twenty-four, and greatest length thirty-three miles. In shape it is something like a retort, the bulb being to the west, while the stem runs out between the two Raptis and the parganas of Utraula and Tulsipur. It falls naturally into three divisions, one lying between the Rapti and the Kuwana, in which the soil is generally of a fair dumat, but poorly popuThe banks of the Kuwana are lated, and not under careful cultivation. fringed by dense cane brakes, which are haunted by a few leopards, and, it is asserted, a solitary tiger. These are succeeded by a narrow belt of forest, consisting generally of small sal trees, and fuU of spotted deer, nil-gae, and pigs. After this comes a low-lying plain, covered with khar grass, and containing patches of very inferior cultivation, graduating into the more fully tilled vfllages of the northern half. In the rains the Rapti overflows its banks and spreads a destructive flood over the low lands as far as the Suwdwan river, which cuts the division in half, and, an inconsiderable stream at other times, is then a copious river.

The second division is the duab between the Rapti and the Btirhi Rapti, a long strip extending across the whole breadth of the district, and widening towards the Basti frontier. It contains a few good villages, but generally suffers greatly from the floods of both rivers, which in many places join during the rains, leaving generally a barren sandy deposit. Higher at both extremities, the centre of this division is occupied by an extensive tract of grass waste, which is for months under three to five feet of water, and can only be reclaimed by the erection of expensive embankments. The land to the north of the Btirhi Rapti is generally of a fine Its most striking feature is the number of hill clay and well cultivated. torrents

by which

it is

intersected.

Flowing between high

cliffs

for

a few

miles after they leave the jungles of the Tarai, they encounter at the Balrampur frontier a low plain sloping gently to the south, and at their junction with the Burhi Rapti, run level with surrounding fields. Generally shallow streams of water, they are subject to sudden flushes at the end of the hot weather and in the rains, and breaking down huge fragments of the BndcLha's tooth-brush is said to have sprouted into a tree at Vaisakh, wrongly I think identified with Ajodhya, by General Cunningham, Archseological Journal Vol. I, S18,—Editor,
 * Vide Julien's Memoirea sur lea contrfes Ocoidentales, par Hiouen Tsang Vol. I. p. 292.

t By W.

C. Beuett, Esq.,

c. s.

Assistant Commissioner,