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washing down their feasts with copious draughts of mahua. They offer goats to Samai, and decapitate chickens Their worship of Banspati Mai is more before the snake god Kare Deo. Hindu in its character, and their pure offerings of grain and clarified butter Marriages are contracted are handed over to be eaten by a Brahman. without the intervention of a pandit, and with the rites in use among other low-castes, such as Koris and Chamars. With a magnificent assumption of rights not recognized by our law, the bride's father makes over in shankalp to the bridegroom a small patch of forest to clear and cultivate. The Kewats or Kaivartas of the Puranas claim to be descended from the Nishadas of Hindu legend, and frequent the banks of forest streams, living by fishery, the manufacture of rush mats, the superintendence of ferries, and a little rude spade husbandry.

the flesh of

pigs,

spirit of rice or

This pargana originally owned the suzerainty of the great Kalhans and on the fall of that dynasty with Raja Achal Narain Singh in the fifteenth century, passed with what was saved from the general anarchy to his posthumous son Bhing Singh, the Raja of BabhniAt about this time a fresh power was introduced pair and Rasdlpur Ghaus. into the neighbourhood by the irruption of the Pathans under Ali Khan, and his establishment of the Utraula raj. The fourth in descent from him, AMwal Khan, turned his arms .to the south, and subdued the tract between the Kuwana and the Bisuhi, including the whole of the present pargana of Babhnipair, which from that time till annexation formed a tappa of the Utraula pargana. Alawal Khan is admitted to have been the eldest son, but the newly acquired country had to be maintained in arms, and he preferred the post of danger, building for himself a fort at Qasba Khas, and leaving Utraula, with the title of raja, to his younger brother Adam Khan. He had five sons, and as the chieftainship did not vest in him, his conquest was divided equally among them instead of goinc to the eldest. Three of these died without offspring, and two of the lapsed shares were taken by the elder, one by the younger of the survivors. This division was maintained till annexation, when the pargana was still divided into the eastern three-fifths and western two-fifths. The family has but little separate history, and in war and peace followed the fortunes of the head of their clan at Utraula. At the beginning of this century Rajjab Ali Khan and Ali Raza Khan, owners of the |th share, attained considerable wealth, it is said, by the discovery of treasure buried long since by At any rate, the fact is proved by their very fine brick-house the Tharus. in Qasba Khas, which their impoverished descendants have allowed to fall Their cousin Ashraf Bakhsh Khan, of the fth share, was a very into ruin. noted character in the later days of the Nawabi. good soldier and excellent scholar, both in Persian and Hindi, he was a leading spirit in all the disputes with the Government officials, and his ability was only equalled by his turbulence and a disregard of the most solemn engagements, which was remarkable even in this country. At the mutiny he became one of the favourite officers of Muhammad Hasan, the rebel Nazim of Gorakhpur, and rajas of Khurasa,

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at pacification he was proscribed and his estateof forty-two villages confiscated and assigned, in reward for his loyal services in escorting Sir Charles Wingfield and the Bahraich refugees from Balrampur, to Bhayya Harratan Singh, who is now the principal taluqdar of the pargana. Almost the whole