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GON

566

GONDA

of

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Pargana Gonda Taksil Gonda District GoNDl. Gonda is situated 28 miles north-north-west of Fyzabad and

Town*

The town

within 50 miles as the crow flies of the lower ranges of hills, which are throughout the rains and in clear weather at other seasons of the Owing to the proximity of the hills the climate is more moist and year. the average temperature lower in Gonda than in stations south of the Gogra. The public health is good. The population of the native town and civil lines was estimated in the census of 1868 to be 13,722, being about 1-50 Gonda is not now celebrated for any manuless than that of Balrampur. factures though its shields were noted and in great request in the Nawabi It is not a commercial centre, nor is it of any importance as a place rule. held sacred by professors of either the Hindu or Muhammadan faith. At one time there were large cantonments north-west of the native town and the presence of British troops gave importance to the place, but the troops were withdrawn in 1863, and Gonda is now known merely as the chief town of a pargana of the same name and as the seat of Government for a

is

visible



large district.

There are a few objects of interest within the native town. As you enter from the Fyzabad side you have in the distance on your right two large buildings facing each other, the thakurdwaras of Mihin Lai, Khattri, and Bhagwan Gir, Faqir, between which there is always a sheet of water, scant in the dry weather but a wide expanse in the rains. This spot is one of the few ornaments about the east end of the qasba. of Bhagwan Gir is of recent construction, but beside a chilbil tree with which is connected a curious tradition. The guru of the faqir whose panth regards this thakurdwara as a homestead or seat from which they have sprung, lived, some centuries ago, at this spot. One day when he had cleaned his teeth with a twig of a chilbil tree, he stuck it in the ground and prophecied that it would grow to be a great tree and that the sun of the Gonda nijas would decline and ruin overtake the line on the day that a monkey first appeared on the tree. The tooth-brushtwig grew and the tree is standing. The portentous monkey is said to have appeared on the tree on the day the mutiny began, and the prophecy was fulfilled by the fate of Debi Bakhsh, the mutineer, who was the last of the Gonda rajas. Pursuing your way to the chauk you see appearing here and there between the houses on your right a long strip of filthy water, one of the many sheets of the kind which offend the eye and nose in various parts of the town. These are the remnants of the moat which surrounded the old village and fort round which the modem town has grown up. The moat became gradually widened by new comers taking mud from its edge to build houses until at last the widened ditch has grown into a series of ponds which are never completely filled with water but which are at all times the receptacles of ordure and offal of all kinds, and which exhale, especially at the, close of the rains, a fever-breeding malaria. Standing in the chauk you see as you look round that there are four roads meeting. You have left behind you that coming from Fyzabad. That from the south-west comes in from the Begamganj tahsil and passes within the limits of the town at a short distance of the sadr

The thakurdwara

it is



By W. Hoey,

m.a., c.s., Assistant

Commissiauer.