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 142 KHE and Kukra Mailáni, the land is not low, though the people cluster together in the low spots, being too few and feeble to subdue the forests on the uplands. Cultivation is scanty; ploughed land, which is known to purify the atmosphere, is small in area compared with that covered by forest and jungle. There is nothing therefore in the level of the country to render the water stagnant and the air unhealthy; the causes of the great mortality in Kheri are more probably the forests, the heavy rain- fall, the wretched houses and food of the people. South of the Ul we find, indeed, that the great rivers have ceased to sweep off cultivation, and leave pestilent swamps behind; but here we meet another feature. Between each pair of rivers there is a plain, more or less broad, considerably less elevated than the so-called tarái to the north. There is very little slope in any of these plains for many miles, apd marshes are formed, from which emerge the head waters of various small secondary streams. Thus between the Ul and the Kathna rises the Kewani, the Jamwári, the Saráyan, the Pirai, which flow down the plateaus, and become not only dangerous torrents to cross in the rains, but devastating floods. Between the Kathna and Gumti the plateau slopes on each side, and the drainage is into those rivers; but beyond the Gumti appear the Chúcha and the Sukheta, the latter rising a few miles out of the district. Speaking broadly, there their is no watershed between the Chauka and the Rámganga in north-west Oudh. The country con- sists of a plateau sloping longitudinally, and drained by a number of small streams, most of which join the Ganges further down. The Ul, Gumti, and Chauka are practically useless for purposes of irrigation, except on the low levels of their alluvial banks, and the smaller streams are almost equally useless, because in the dry season their beds contain no water, while, owing to the porous nature of the subsoil, embank- ments in most places do not serve to retain the water, Lakes.—There are very few lakes north of the Ul, but in Paila, Haida- rabad, and Kheri numerous large sheets of water occur. The largest, which is at Simri in Paila, is about two miles in diameter either way; in Kheri pargana, at Gumchini and Muhammadabad, are fine sheets of wa- ter, and a large jhíl borders the village of Sikandarabad. The aver- age depth is about three feet, and a ll are navigable by small boats bol- lowed out of trunks of trees. There is no lake or marsh cultivation except that of the singhára or waternut. They are not used for irrigation. North of the Ul, at Ramia Bihar, in the Dhaurahra, beyond Tirkaulia in the Palia pargana, and at Matera there are in curves of the ancient channels of the Kauriála and Sárda fine sheets of water from ten to twenty feet deep, from three to four miles long, and in some places fringed with magnificent groves. These lakes are locally called 'bhaggħar. There are no river-side towns, nor do the villages adjoining contain any number of persons who live by fishing or river traffic. At the ferries on the Chauka and Kauriala, particularly Pachperi, merchants encamp during the cold weather and buy up grain, departing before the rains commence. Inundations. The Clauka overflows its banks for many miles, as elswehere statedl,* during the rains, the sheet of water thus formed extend- ► See article “Chauka,"