Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/372

 BHU

294.

has a slow current and an average width of 25 or 30 yards, and it joins the Chauka in the Sitapur district after a course of about eighty miles. it

These are the four rivers of the upper country, beginning from the north. Returning now from south to north, we find the flat plain between the Ul and Kandwa is by far the best and richest part of the pargana, and conThe principal one is Aliganj, tains many large and populous villages. which once gave its name to a pargana. It has the remains of an old fort, and is divided into four muhallas 1, Aliganj ; 2, Sarae Ramuapur 3, Kusmauri and a fourth. There are several other very large villages which are heads of small taluqas, such as Rasulpanah, Chaurathia, and Bdnsi.





They are all embowered in magnificent groves of fruit trees, and many have large masonry buildings, mosques, temples, and tombs, and a very dense and apparently prosperous population. The soil is excellent, facilities for irrigation are very plentiful, water is found at an average distance of 12 or 15 feet from the surface, and the best crops flourish. Beyond the Aliganj plain and the river Kandwa to the north, the land, as has been seen, sinks somewhat and the tract between the Kandwa and the Junai is inferior in richness of soil to the plain round Aliganj, though it formed a part of the old pargana of that name. There are a few large fine villages, the heads of small taluqas, such as Agar Buzurg and Agar Khurd, which are almost equal to the villages already mentioned in population and prosperity. But the soil is worse it is too damp, water is within eight or nine feet of the surface, and inundations from the Kandwa and Junai are injurious to the soil, and frequently leave a saliferous deposit.



The Junai river was the boundary between the old parganas of Bhiir and Aliganj, from the point where it fiows on the south boundary of Bhur into Srinagar, up northwards as far as its source in the large patch of sal forest still left in the centre of Aliganj pargana and thence the boundary passed between the villages of Nausar Jogipur and Munria Hem Singh and joined the Barauncha river, which was the boundary from that point up to the sdl forests on the west.

The tract of country between the Junai and the Barauncha towards the north and the Junai and the high bank bounding the ganjar country on the south greatly resembles in character the country between the Kandwa and the Junai, and somewhat similar to them also are the few villages that lie beyond the Barauncha and between that river and the ganjar country. The farther we go to the north, the less populous is the country and the more scattered the villages. Beyond the Barauncha the only large villages are Bhira and Bijwa, both head-quarters of the great Bhiir taluqa, and far away to the north the village of K^mp, with the ruins of its ancient fort overlooking the Chauka. To the west and south of the country watered by the Barauncha, the Junai, and the Kandwa, but to the north-west of the Aliganj plain, lie the great sal forests in the terrace of the river Ul. They extend about 28 miles in length from Aliganj to Kamp, and have an average width of about 3 miles, and an area, therefore, of about 80 square miles. These forests contain many low swamps and marshes, from which proceed malarious exhalations which cause the villages bordering on the forest to be